Long Goodbyes
by AlexG
Summary: 3rd in the series. The Doctor and Quinn each have to face some of their old demons when a simple trip into a planet's past turns from a noninterference trip for observation only into a plan to prevent damage to the timeline. The Doctor will have to use tactics he hasn't used since the Time War, and Quinn may lose yet another person she cares about.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: This is the third story in the series. The first two are called "Harmony," and "The Harvesting Darkness." If you haven't read those, well, this is a crossover so I think I'm OK to do this...**_

_**So here's what's been happening on Doctor Who. The Doctor showed up at McKinley and couldn't get back in the Time Vortex because an alien in the basement was trying to change the history of the whole universe. Yikes. The Doctor saved the day, but to fix the changes to the timeline he had to let the glee club re-live their timeline. And Quinn couldn't stay because now she's from a redundant timeline, so she's traveling with the Doctor until she finds a place to settle down. And that's what you missed on Doctor Who.**_

* * *

Afternoon of the Fourth Day

The Siborean talks had broken down, just like everyone had said they would. The members of the colony world Fragaria weren't expecting anything different, after all. They'd been down this road before and, ultimately, nothing ever changed. Of course it had all been going well until the Siborean ambassador was assassinated, but the general population didn't know about that. No political group would take responsibility for the assassination, not that it would have mattered at this point anyway. It was too late for the government to simply turn over the perpetrators. Now the Siborean war council had been called in, there was no turning back. Peace hadn't been the ultimate goal, but at least mutual coexistence had been hoped for. There was no chance for that now. Now there was just nothingness.

Daniel Parker stood alone, just outside the hangar door, watching the faraway city over the vast plains separating them. The worst thing, he though, was being alone. He knew what was coming; the vast array of equipment inside the lab gave him a uniquely clear picture of the happenings far above, in orbit of the planet. The government hadn't told the people anything. Maybe that was for the best. Because the knowing without being able to do anything about it was nothing short of horrific.

The end was coming, in a matter of moments, and as he stared out over the city he had just one regret; that his parents' research would never be completed. All he wanted out of life since they had died was a chance to carry out their work, and publish their findings under their names, as a tribute to those he cared about, and who had most cared about him. That would never happen now. As he looked out towards the city, a sparkling light streaked into view from the upper atmosphere. It flew down towards the spire at the very center of the spaceport, and when it landed, he was nearly blinded by a white flash. The last thing he knew was the sensation of a great heat washing over every single bit of his being.

* * *

The Doctor kicked at a blackened, charred piece of metal. "Such a waste," he muttered.

Quinn stood behind him, leaning against the door frame of the TARDIS, with her arms cradled protectively around her middle. "What happened?"

"Hard to say," he replied. "A war of some kind, most likely. Mutual annihilation, or maybe an unprovoked attack." The TARDIS had materialized on the ruins of a once great city. The remains of great spires and buildings could still be seen off in the distance. A large tower had once stood at the center of the city, with an array of smaller buildings around it. If they looked to the distance, they could see a large alcove carved into the cliff face, miles away.

"Do you have any idea who did this? Couldn't you, I don't know... analyze the weapon signature or something?"

He chuckled lightly. "Possibly, if this were anything more cunning than an explosion. It's not, though. And one nuclear explosion pretty much looks like any other."

"That's all this was? A nuke, like from my time?"

He shook his head. "Oh no. If there's one thing that never stops, Quinn, one thing that never, ever changes, it's this: people always get better and more clever at killing one another. Just a nuke? Sure, same basic principle applies; compress enough fissionable material and off you go. The question becomes, what fissionable material? How can you lose less energy in the conversion to increase the yield of the reaction? How can you chain the devices together for greater destruction? Yes, it's like your time, only much more deadly. And it's such a shame."

She took a few tentative steps out of the relative safety of the Police Box. "Who were they?"

He shrugged. "Nobody knows. Kept to themselves, really. There's not even a note in the TARDIS' databanks, and you know how rare that is. It was called Fragaria colony, according to the sign in the spaceport."

She nodded. "I wonder what they were like."

"History will never know."

They stood silent for a moment, her leaning against his arm now, holding his right hand in her left. They kept silent watch, then she said, "Why don't we go find out?"

He looked down at her. "How d'you mean?"

She sighed. "Somebody should remember them," she said. "Even if it's just us."

Now he sighed. "Hmm. Could you do it, though?"

"Do what?"

"Could you really look at them, get to know them... knowing what's coming? Because this," he said, nodding towards the rubble, "doesn't change. History says there's no civilized planet here and we're not going to argue the point. Not this time, not here."

She thought about it for a moment. "No references? Not in the TARDIS, not in a history book, nothing?"

"None, " he replied.

She looked out over the vast fields of destruction, taking in all the details. "When I was a little girl, my parents took me to the Vietnam War memorial. My dad was a soldier - did I ever tell you? There's a huge age gap between him and my mom. I was only nine. And that wall, it just stretched on forever, engraved with names, top to bottom.

"My dad was looking for a name, his squad leader, and he couldn't find it. I didn't really understand what it was about or why it mattered to him, but I told him I was sorry we couldn't find his friend. He said that it was alright and it didn't matter, because as long as there were people like us, coming to the memorial and remembering everyone that was lost, then those people would never really be gone." She looked at him. "It's not about our curiosity. It's a question of honor."

He smiled at her. "Who can argue with that? Allons-y!" And he bounded back inside the TARDIS.

DAVID TENNANT  
DIANNA AGRON

DOCTOR WHO

LONG GOODBYES


	2. Chapter 2

Quinn started to close the door behind her, but the Doctor stopped her. "No no no, leave it open," he said. "I love doing this."

"What?"

He started cranking a large, squeaky dial on the console, and the central column started to move up and down. Outside the door, nothing much seemed to be happening. But suddenly there were wisps of smoke off in the distance, forming in the air and twisting downwards towards the buildings in the distance. Soon they became thicker and blacker, and the whole of the sky was filled with heavy, black, choking smoke that continued to be sucked down towards the ground. It looked as if massive fires out in the city were actually unburning, and as soon as the thought crossed her mind Quinn realized that in all likelihood, that was exactly what was happening.

As long as she lived she would never, _ever _get used to time travel. Some of the structures built themselves up out of the rubble, and the scene before started undoing itself faster and faster. More buildings sprouted from the devastation, glass unshattered itself, and suddenly there was a blinding flash and a shockwave, both of which collapsed down into a single point near the foot of the massive tower at the center of the city. A massively bright light lurched up from the ground, eating a smoke trail above it, until it became a pinprick in the sky and, finally, disappeared. People stopped staring at the spot in the sky, started walking backwards going about their daily business.

"Right, I'll take it back to, hm... three days before? No, four. Four days. Aaaaaaaaand, there we go!" He flipped a knob and everything outside the TARDIS stopped, stood completely still. And then at regular speed, they started to move forward again. Quinn had just watched an entire civilization rebuild itself out of the ashes.

"Did you just hit rewind on a planet?"

"Nah. I moved us backwards in the time stream while maintaining the same position relative to the planet."

"What's the difference?"

"Exactly," he said. "Now, that gives us four days until doomsday 2.0. We have to be back here when that happens," he said. "If you're outside the TARDIS, you won't fare any better than they did. Understand?"

"Got it."

"Good. Let's synchronize," he said, holding out the sonic screwdriver and pulling her left hand towards him to reset her watch.

"No!" she said, snatching it away and covering it with her right hand.

"What?"

"I haven't reset this watch since I took off with you, and I'm not going to. I want to keep track of time. Real time. My time."

"Whatever for?"

"Well," she said, "for starters I don't want my fortieth week to sneak up on me," she said, patting her stomach. "Time gets away from you in here. But it's more than that. I know I'm cut off but... I want to keep track of what's happening there. I want to think of them for Christmas and Regionals and Nationals, and..." she looked at him, smirking back down at her. "...and you think I'm being silly, don't you?"

"No," he said. "I think you're being human. So," he said, clapping his hands, "not that one. I think I have a fobwatch here somewhere..." He rummaged around for a moment and produced one on a gold chain, set it to match the TARDIS' chronometer, and hung it around her neck. "The inner dial counts down to doomsday," he said. "Be back here when it reaches zero."

"Aren't you coming with me?"

"I figured I'd check out the capitol, see what kind of government we're dealing with, and find out who destroys this planet from orbit. Now, you're welcome to hang around the Capitol with me for four days, but I thought you might be a bit more in your element having a look round the culture centers."

She smiled. "I think I can handle that," she said.

"Good. Just... not a word about what happens in four days. You can't say a thing to a soul."

"Okay. I understand. Don't worry. It was Finn that could never keep a secret, not me."

"Perfect. See you here in four days," he said.

"Wait! What if I need to get a hold of you?"

"Oh, don't worry. I'll find you."

The last time she'd lost sight of him, though, she'd ended up almost ritually sacrificed, tied to a giant stone god. "Meet me here for dinner?" she called after him.

"Wouldn't miss it." And with that he was off.

**Morning of the First Day**

Quinn was somewhat giddy with excitement. She didn't know where to go first, what to do first. She'd never been given free reign to just explore before, even back home. She had lived in more of a, 'where are you going, what are you going to do, who are you going to do it with, call me when you get there and when you leave' sort of household. This was a whole planet, and she wasn't sure what to do with the blank canvas laid out before her. So many options, so little time. What was the best way to get started?

Her stomach grumbled, and she smiled. "Food. Good idea." Breakfast had been three thousand years ago in another galaxy, so she figured she deserved a sandwich by now. They had landed in a plaza of some kind, so there was no shortage of shops and restaurants. The names were unfamiliar though, so finding one that actually made it clear what was being served was something of a challenge. She wondered idly if Breadstix had ever opened an intergalactic branch. Probably not.

She would have had an easier choice if her body weren't so out of whack lately. Even the smell of some foods would turn her stomach these days, which was especially annoying when they were the same foods she was craving. The Doctor was surprisingly patient about whisking them away from the wonders of the universe to make pit stops for chocolate and bacon. Only once had those two been combined into one salty sweet mass that had made the Time Lord grimace.

As she walked around a corner, she found a group of people sitting on benches and leaning against trees, watching a young man strum the futuristic equivalent of a guitar. It was certainly shaped like a guitar, but it was completely flat and, when she looked closely, she could see that the strings and the wood grain on the body were completely digital. The whole thing was a touch screen, but it sounded clearer and cleaner than any of the guitars Puck or Artie had played.

But what was more amazing was that she recognized the song that the man was playing. It was a folk song that had been among her favorites as a child. She used to sing it with her mother and father whenever it would come on the radio, each of them taking one of the three parts.

"Go on! Sing that one, Daniel," a girl said. "What are you waiting for?"

"I can strum up the melody," he said, "but it's a duet."

"Aww, too bad," said another young man. "It sounds beautiful."

She bit her bottom lip, considering. She shouldn't intervene, but then again this hardly seemed like a private party. She walked closer to the group, but stayed on the outskirts, considering whether to speak up or not.

Had she really hated everyone in the glee club a short five months ago? It seems like an eternity had passed since those days. And when she though back on home, the home she could no longer return to, she was surprised that they were the first people that came to mind, time and again.

And not only did she miss those people, but she missed performing. Whether it was with the Cheerios or with the New Directions, it had actually been fun to be in the spotlight, to have audiences cheering because _they were enjoying what you were doing_. It was fun, and she hadn't realized how much she missed that part of her day until it was gone.

"Yeah, can't you sing both parts?" the first girl said, interrupting her reminiscing.

"It's just not the same without the harmonizing," the guitarist replied. "Sorry."

He continued to strum the guitar, despite the disappointed faces of the rest of the group. Quinn took a deep breath to summon her courage. She'd sung in front of a massive audience at Sectionals, surely these seven or eight people were a manageable audience. She thought about broaching the subject, but there wasn't a way to do it without seeming like a gushing idiot. If she was going to do it, she was just going to have to dive in and do it.

She waited until he got to the top of the next verse, and then she just went for it.

_The Cruel War is raging, Johnny has to fight_

_I want to be with him from morning to night._

The crowd was suddenly looking in her direction, surprised. He hadn't started singing, but he hadn't stopped playing either. She just hoped that he would join in, or she was going to feel like an idiot.

_I want to be with him, it grieves my heart so,_

_Won't you let me go with you?_

_No, my love, no._

Still nothing from him. He hadn't sung a word. This might have been the worst idea she had ever had. She was close to just running away, going back to the TARDIS to hide for the four days until the Doctor came back and they could be on their way. But just about the moment she was going to give in and run, embarrassed, he started the second verse.

_Tomorrow is Sunday, Monday is the day_

_That your Captain will call you and you must obey._

_Your captain will call you it grieves my heart so,_

_Won't you let me go with you?_

_No, my love, no._

They sounded good together. He had a tenor voice, clear and strong, and together they harmonized well enough that the girl who had begged him to sing both parts had glistening eyes.

_I'll tie back my hair, men's clothing I'll put on,_

_I'll pass as your comrade, as we march along._

_I'll pass as your comrade, no one will ever know._

_Won't you let me go with you?_

_No, my love, no._

_Oh Johnny, oh Johnny, I fear you are unkind_

_I love you far better than all of mankind._

_I love you far better than words can e're express_

_Won't you let me go with you?_

_Yes, my love, yes._

_Yes, My Love, Yes._

By the time the last note faded away, the assembled crowd - which had grown by another five to ten people - was completely silent. Nobody had said a word since the song began, and nobody was speaking now. Then one of the boys began to applaud, and soon the whole makeshift audience had joined in. She smiled, started to blush, and then with a quick wave and a grin she melted back into the crowd and around a corner. She stood with her back to a brick wall. Her heart was hammering in her chest. That was fun... no, that was _exhilarating_. Okay, _this _was what the Doctor was all about. Jumping in with both feet, doing things you'd never done before, having brand new experiences. The more time she spent with him, the more she just _got it_.

There was a cafe near her and it seemed as good a place as any, so she wandered in and asked for a table for one.


	3. Chapter 3

In four days, this world was going to be demolished by a high yield warhead, fired from orbit by an unknown vessel. The devastation would be absolute - no survivors. The shockwave that emanated from the device would vaporize anything organic that it touched, sweeping across the whole planet; the TARDIS had told him as much when it observed the event, albeit in reverse. But the thing was, these people didn't seem like a particular threat. They didn't look like a particularly warlike race from what he could see strolling through the capitol city, and he couldn't find any evidence that they were even slightly warlike. So the question was, who would want these people wiped out of existence in just four days' time?

Working on a deadline meant that he had to be more cautious than he normally would. He had no intention of sitting in a holding cell when doomsday arrived. He had to be sure not to do anything which could seem like he was in some way in league with this world's enemies.

The fact that he didn't know who their enemies were was just the icing on the cake. He had to get in on the ground floor, then quickly work his way up to the top of the government. Four days? Ought to be a cinch.

Walking around downtown, he soon found a kiosk with free newspapers. _Siborean Peace Talks Underway_, a headline read. _Negotiations To Outline Mining Agreement, Benefit Both Worlds_, the subhead continued. Intriguing.

_Siborean Ambassador T'Klava of the Siborean Engineering Corps will arrive at the Capitol building on Monday to meet with the planetary planning committee and deliberate whether or not to allow Karburrium mining from the surface of the planet._

_Simultaneously, an environmental team will be sent to the Siborean vessel to gauge the potential environmental impact._

_It is hoped that a mutually beneficial solution will be found over the course of the five day conference._

_"My scientific advisory team and I trust that we will soon have enough information about the mining procedures they are discussing to make an informed decision," colony president Marcus Wyler said at a press conference last night._

_The Siboreans first made contact with the Fragaria colony three years ago when their survey team located a large subterranean deposit of Karburrium five kilometers below the surface of the planet._

_Since then, continual negotiations for the crystalline material have taken place._

_Proponents of the plan say that the influx of capital into our economy will stimulate further growth beyond the few cities and spaceport already established._

_Opponents say that it is preferable to remain true to the isolationist views of the colony's founders than to begin crafting alliances with offworlders._

_Karburrium is a crystalline material of no practical use to Fragarian society, but which functions as a data link aboard Siborean vessels. While not unique in its properties, it is both the cheapest to extract and the most abundant of the acceptable materials._

The easiest way to misread the situation would be to jump to conclusions, but the Doctor was already formulating theories. Perhaps the council had decided not to allow the mining, so the Siboreans hit them with a warhead to wipe them out and then take whatever they wanted from the burnt out husk that remained.

Of course, he'd have to verify that fact, and there was one easy way to do that. He'd have to inspect the warhead close up. If the Siborean weapons matched the device that had leveled the planet, then that would be enough evidence to convince him. He might not be able to save the planet, but he'd at least make sure someone was held responsible for the slaughter.

**Afternoon of the First Day**

A bacon cheeseburger. This planet had a bacon cheeseburger on the menu. Not that the wide variety of exotic meats and fruits over the past couple weeks hadn't been spectacular, but... this was bacon. And beef. And cheese. Two different kinds of meat, with a thick slick of red onion and Swiss cheese.

The waitress set it on the table, and Quinn stared at it, not saying a word.

"Everything alright, love?" the waitress asked.

"Yeah. It's just... beautiful."

"Oookay then," the waitress replied, walking away. Apparently, those two wanted to be alone.

Meat like this had, until recently, been banished from Quinn Fabray's diet. It was fat and salt, topped with more fat, surrounded by carbs with a side of carbs deep fried in fat. It was certainly inappropriate for the captain of the cheerleading squad. A few months ago it would have been steamed vegetables and skinless chicken breasts, thank you very much. It had been a long time since she'd given in to temptation and ordered anything like this. Now it was like a work of art on the plate before her. It would be a shame to destroy its perfectly crafted beauty.

That wasn't going to stop her.

She cut the sandwich in half, and took a bite. It wasn't as if it was a particularly wonderful hamburger, anyway. The bacon wasn't completely crisp, the meat wasn't USDA choice, and the bun wasn't even toasted. And Quinn did not care in the slightest.

'Dead civilization - Wonderful hamburgers' she added to the mental list of things she would remember about this place when it was gone in a few short days. Actually, that was the first item on the list, so she decided she had better start adding more to it before much more time went by. She didn't know for sure why it felt so important for someone to know something about this place. What was going to happen? Would she be at a party some day where someone would just casually drop the obscure colony into conversation? 'Oh, yes, I had a lovely hamburger there once,' she would say. The odds were the conversation would never even happen, but somehow that didn't matter.

Even if it did happen, it hardly did the civilization justice to sum it up in just a few words. How would you even begin to do this? She couldn't even sum up America in a few sentences, and she had lived there all her life. You could talk about Elvis and football and the Civil War, but how could you mention those things and leave out the 4th of July, fried chicken, apple pie, Watergate, Woodstock... she couldn't just tour a few museums and call it good here.

"Anything else I can get you?" the waitress asked.

"No, I'm fine," she replied.

"I'll just leave this for you, then," she said, dropping off a black folder. "Just pay the cashier when you're ready to go."

"Thanks," she said, smiling.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her wallet, opening the little folder. The concept of a receipt hadn't changed much in the past few centuries, apparently, because everything was easily recognizable. There was a line item for the drink, and another for the burger. But even with two items the total was only 2.10. Inflation must have finally started going the other way at one point.

As she looked at the total line further, though, something seemed amiss. The symbol in front of the total was not an S with a line through it. Nor was it an E with a curved back, two symbols she recognized. It was a little triangle with a dot inside. And she had no idea what it stood for. Her mouth went dry. _Oh crap_.


	4. Chapter 4

She was interrupted from her panic attack by someone clearing their throat across the table from her. She looked up to find the guy who'd been singing before, with the digital guitar strapped to his back. "What?" She said, realizing as soon as she said it that it had been impolite.

He looked taken aback. "Erm, hi," he said. "I've been looking for you for an hour. I just wanted to say that, well, you were wonderful back there."

"Oh, well, uh... thank you."

"Yeah, absolutely. Where'd you learn to sing like that?"

"I've always enjoyed singing, but I only started doing it professionally a few months ago."

His eyes went wide. "You're a professional singer?"

"Well, not exactly professional. Competitive, though."

"Wow."

"Yeah, it's pretty cool I guess." Not at school itself, she thought... it was about the least cool thing in the world there... but didn't say so.

He sat silent for a few moments while she continued to stare at the bill, then stood up. "Look, it's obvious I'm disturbing you. I'll just leave you be."

"No, wait," her head snapped up. "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to ignore you. I'm just in a bit of a bind."

"What's wrong?" he asked, sitting back down.

"I'm new around here... as in, on this planet, and I didn't think to get any money converted to the local currency."

He smiled. "Is that all? The spaceport services traffic from all over these parts. Almost any merchant will handle the conversion for you."

"Really?"

"Yeah. What've you got?"

"The bill is 2.10... uh..."

"...galactic credits." he finished for her.

"And I've got... fifty-seven dollars."

"Dollars?"

"Yeah."

"Alteran or Dirubian?"

"U.S."

"Hm. Nothing else?"

"'fraid not. This is it." She pulled out the five and two ones.

His eyes went wide again. "US... You mean American?"

"Uh, yeah."

"You have American Dollars, and you're just carrying them around?" He seemed incredulous.

"Why not?"

"Put them away," he said in a hushed tone, grabbing the bill and reaching into his own pocket to pull out a small blue hexagon made of translucent plastic.

"No, I can't ask you to-"

"You'd be doing me a favor," he said, cutting her off. "Will you come with me?"

"Where are we going?"

"To see an old friend of mine. He deals in antiques."

* * *

The capitol building was tastefully done. Not too ornate, but sleek and functional. It was technologically advanced and well cared for, without the extreme of opulence. Government spending seemed to be checked in at least some degree; whether it was out of genuine concern for fair treatment or simply necessity the Doctor didn't know.

The science team had probably been assembled weeks ago, considering the importance of the conference, so trying to convince everyone that he was supposed to be there was going to be almost impossible, even with psychic paper. Maybe his best bet, in this case, was honesty. Well, semi-honesty anyway.

He was confident he could work his way into the team with his expertise if he could get an audience with the team lead. A little charm, a little wit, a sonic screwdriver and a piece of psychic paper would get that taken care of.

"Hallo!" he said brightly as he entered the lobby. The security guard behind the desk stood to greet him, reaching for a clipboard, but the Doctor intercepted his hand and forced him into a warm handshake. "I'm here about the gene sequencer in the science lab where the President's science team has assembled.

The man looked over his clipboard again, and said, "Sorry. I don't see your name listed."

"I haven't... told you my name."

"Fine. What's your name?"

The Doctor looked down at the clipboard, saw that there was not a single incoming appointment listed, and then said, "The Doctor?" as if it were a question.

"Uh-huh."

"Alright, I'm not here about the gene sequencer at all."

"You don't say."

"No, really. Honestly, I just want to meet the science team that's headed to the Siborean vessel tomorrow."

"Look, no less than ten public forums have been held about this thing. The council's heard every one of your arguments and it's all being considered."

"Ah, no, sorry, I wasn't clear. I'm not here to protest. I'm here to offer my services."

"Sir, the team was chosen from the most brilliant minds on the planet."

"Yes, exactly. But who better than an impartial, outside observer to lend a bit of clarity to the situation? Besides, I've got decades of experience in these kinds of issues. I might just be able to help."

"Really?" a new voice behind him said. "What's the best way to determine the net effect of orbital drilling on global climate change?"

"Trick question. It depends on if it's a laser drill or a gravity funnel, now doesn't it?"

"Hm. Very keen. We need to consider the effect of a fleet of Siborean vessels entering and leaving the atmosphere daily. Any expertise on what we can expect from di-ionized thrust matrices?"

"Weeeeell, the cumulative effect is really the only concern; I mean, you have traffic in and out of the spaceport all the time, right?"

"Only a couple times a week. We're very remote. We like that."

"Hm," he said, thinking for a few moments, then coming back with, "MmmHmm. Watch your anti-proton levels. Just in case."

"We'll take that under advisement. But now I really must be going."

"Awww," the Doctor said, pouting. "But I thought I was doing well."

"Oh, you were. You clearly know your stuff, but we're too busy trying to work out a method for advising if this is a good move or not. We haven't the experience for that - no one has. And we're too busy trying to come up with answers for that to bring someone on at the eleventh hour."

"Experince! Oh, now, I _can _offer you that."

"You've had experiences?"

"Every day. Can't seem to stop."

"Alright, but... relevant experiences?"

"Oh, I've seen climate change, global atmospheric collapse, whole ecosystems poisoned. I was a first responder at the Androtraxi Major spaceliner leak, I stopped a Parallel Earth from overheating under accelerated global warming, and I stopped the Titanic from irradiating a swatch of the British Isles this past Christmas."

"You really want this, don't you?"

"How could you tell?"

"Who else would come up with lies like that? Well, come on, then, you'd best meet the team."

"Ma'am! This visitor's not been authorized!" the security guard said rather severely.

"Carlton, don't be rude! This man's with me." She shot Carlton a wink and then pressed for the elevator. The Doctor just shrugged his shoulders and then followed her.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Happy Series 7 premiere Day! I can't wait to see what the Daleks are up to tonight!

* * *

"Wait up!" Quinn called after the boy who'd come to her rescue in the diner. "Where are you taking me?"

"It's just a few blocks through the plaza," he replied. "There are a few antique shops near the end of the shopping center."

"Well can we take it easy? You're practically galloping."

He slowed his pace, at least slightly. "Sure," he said, but it was clear he didn't like it.

"Who are you, anyway?"

"My name's Daniel," he said, stopping long enough to extend a hand for shaking.

"Quinn," she replied, returning the handshake.

"And what's the purpose of your trip to Fragaria? Business or pleasure?" he asked.

"You sound like a customs officer. Is that what you do?"

He chuckled to himself. "No, I'm not." He laughed again. "Sorry. Inside joke."

She was confused but didn't feel like starting a conversation that might make her brain hurt. "Pleasure."

"Hm?"

"Business or pleasure," she said. "You asked, I'm answering." At least, she was pretty sure this was pleasure. Trying to figure something out about a dead civilization didn't fit neatly into either category, but she supposed the Doctor was handling the business side of the arrangement.

"Well, here's hoping you have a good visit."

"I am so far. Folk songs and a cheeseburger... how can I go wrong?"

They were quiet a moment, then he said, "I meant what I was saying in the cafe. You're a really good singer."

"So are you. I was surprised to find someone who knew that song this far into-" she stuttered. She was about to say 'this far into the future' but realized it sounded crazy. "Er, this... far... from Earth."

"Well, this is an Earth colony after all. _Someone _should care about our history," he said, and he sounded sullen about it.

"How do you mean?"

"Nobody here gives a flip about history," he said. "So it's especially hard for me to live here. History's always been my passion."

"Is that why you know such an old song?" Quinn sometimes felt like she was from a different era back at McKinley; she'd always been considered old fashioned by her peers, up to and including her taste in clothes and music. But that song was considered old even by her standards.

"I remember my mother had a recording of it. She used to sing it to me when I was very young. It's an old folk song but the Earth group that I remember was Peter, Paul, and Marjorie."

"Uh, it's Peter, Paul, and Mary, actually," she said.

He shook his head. "No, I don't think so." She rolled her eyes and didn't press the point. "Here we are," he said.

The shop itself was even antiquated. All the other places they'd passed looked suitably futuristic to match the setting; glass, gleaming metal, and sliding door that opened with a little hiss were the order of the day. But when they arrived at Woodruff's - as the non-digital, non-neon, hand painted wooden sign identified the shop - the door opened with the turn of a knob, and a little bell above the door the rang to signal their entry.

"Oi, Petey!" Daniel called. "I got a real winner for you this time!"

"Be right there," came a muffled voice from somewhere in the back.

"Have a look round," Daniel told her. "Don't let him take advantage of you," he whispered in her ear.

It was almost as if the store had been laid out by era. Some if the older items were really old - the kinds of things that Quinn would consider antiques; they must be like super-antiques by now. But some of the other items on the shelf closer to the back wall were from her own time. It was weird to think about it, but in the year 5261 even the newest things would be ancient.

She bent down to look at a black rectangular device in a display case. iPhone 7 read a small card next to it. "This place is... just..."

"Magnificent? Amazing? Astounding? I've heard them all," said someone behind her. She turned and found herself faced with an older man, probably around 50, with close cropped hair.

"Quinn, Pete Woodruff," Daniel said, and she shook his hand. "A very good friend of mine, and the best antiques dealer on the planet."

"The only antiques dealer," Pete corrected. "Don't let him talk me up."

"No, but, you are," Daniel said. "You don't just win by default - not my business anyway. If you weren't good I'd do my own trading on the net."

"You wouldn't just be saying that because of the 20% finders fee, would you?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny these reports. But while we're on the subject, this young lady has something I think you might be interested in."

She pulled out her wallet, unclasped it, and pulled out a $1 bill, holding it out to Pete.

He gasped, put on a pair of rubber gloves, and gently had her place it in the palm of his outstretched hand. "Oh my," he said. "This piece is magnificent! And so well preserved! It may as well be new!"

"There are numismatists who will pay through the nose for one of these," Daniel told her. "They became ultra rare at the start of the 39th century after the wars."

"I'll give you two thousand for it," Pete told her.

"Aw, Pete! I'm disappointed in you! Taking advantage of an offworld girl like that... you ought to be ashamed. You can get five thousand for that, easy. You ought to at least offer her three fifths."

"I have to be profitable," he said.

"Two thousand is profit. Three thousand is robbery."

"2700 after your finder's fee, don't forget."

"Daniel, don't," Quinn said. "This really isn't necessary."

"No, but he-"

"No, really," she said, giving his arm a squeeze. "I'll happily take the two thousand." Pete smiled, Daniel looked pained, and Quinn took out her wallet. "Now that I know how much they're worth, we can sell the rest ourselves. What's this 'net' you mentioned?" She winked at Daniel, hoping the gesture still had the same meaning three thousand years later. It seemed to have the desired effect, as Daniel was now smiling at her - no, grinning - and Pete looked as if his mouth had suddenly gone very, very dry.

"Now, let's not be hasty," he said, licking his lips.

"Oh, Mr. Woodruff, would you be interested in handling the whole collection?"

"A set of two $1 bills..."

"And a $5, yes. Are fives worth the same as ones?"

He cleared his throat. "No... they're even rarer."

"Plus of course this is a set, so I'd imagine that's worth more still." He nodded. Even though she spoke softly and coyly, it was obvious to everyone that she was winning this encounter. He wished she'd just move in for the kill. "What's your appraisal of the whole set?"

"About t-t-twenty thousand."

"Well, now. Twenty thousand. Minus your finder's fee, that's 20% for Daniel, so I suppose I'd be set with 50%. That makes us, what, 70-30? That is, if those terms are agreeable to you, Mr. Woodruff."

"That'll be fine."

"Great. Thank you so much for your help."

Pete gave her a credit chip with the money on it, took the $7, and she and Daniel left the store. "I cannot believe you!" Daniel said admiringly once they were a few doors away. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone play that man at his own game like that."

"What about you? He didn't pay you!" she suddenly realized, starting to turn back.

"No, it's okay," he said. "My check gets cut after the auction. It's 20% of the sale price."

"I'm surprised he didn't talk me down from 50%. Three thousand was all he was getting before we added anything more."

"Oh, he'll sell it for a lot more than 20,000. Even with my fee he's looking at another 10,000 profit easy. I do this as a hobby," he said. "This time I might have enough to be in the black for a month, thanks to you."

"I do what I can," she said.

"So, uh," he said, "I'm free tomorrow. Will you still be around?"

"Yeah, I'm here for another few days, just trying to see as much as I can."

"Well, how about I show you the sights? We'll get off the beaten path, skip all the tourist traps, and I'll show you what this planet's gonna be famous for in a few years' time."

"I'd like that. Meet you in the cafe tomorrow morning?"

"Is the afternoon okay? I'd like to go to the public address in the morning."

"Sure. Lunchtime? It'll be on me tomorrow."

"It's a date," he said. "Can I walk you to your hotel?"

"Oh, it's just across the plaza."

"There's... no hotel there."

"Isn't there? Hm. Goodnight, Dan."


	6. Chapter 6

"I'm the Doctor, by the way," the Doctor said as they rode up in the elevator. "I didn't catch your name."

"And I've still not caught yours. Funny, isn't it?"

"I suppose I could just call you Lobby Woman. It'd be like a nickname. Lobbyist, even, though I'm pretty sure that means something else."

She raised her eyebrows. "Talk a lot, don't you?"

"And why shouldn't I?" he said in mock indignation. "You never know when a brilliant thought might come to mind. If you don't let them out you might miss one."

"Hm, that'd be a _real _shame. First Tech Melissa Allender is my name. And you are Doctor...?"

"Just Doctor."

"That's not going to go over well with the rest of the science team," she said.

"C'est la vie."

"I've never met anyone with so carefree an attitude," she said. "It's as if you don't care what anyone thinks of you."

"Probably best that way, don't you think?"

"I suppose that works for some people. But my bread and butter depends upon what people think of me."

"Oh? I didn't think of science as a popularity contest."

"But being on the President's science team makes the job equal parts politics and science."

"Sounds like it'd get in the way of some real breakthroughs. Don't you ever dream of just setting out on your own, doing your own experiments?"

She smiled wistfully. "Sometimes, sure. But there are opportunities to do things here that have far reaching implications for the planet, and if you think of dealing with the endless stream of government officials like working with lab rats, it's pretty easy to tolerate. We're even running experiments on them."

"Human testing?" the Doctor's eyes went wide.

"Oh yes," she said, chuckling. "Anthony reckons he can get the senator to scratch his ear every time a bell rings."

"Ah, well... I suppose that's not so bad."

"Here we are," she said as the elevator doors opened. The laboratory must have taken up the entire floor, because the elevator opened right into a cavernous room filled with computer displays, large pieces of machinery, and good old fashioned whiteboards. This planet seemed to have a good relationship with technology, using it when it could be utilized well without it being all-pervasive, but also not going so far as to eschew it completely; that local newspaper had actually been on paper, after all, not a digital download. The Doctor liked these people.

Then he remembered what would happen in a few days' time, and he thought he had better stop that. Getting attached would only cause heartache later.

Three faces turned up from their work to look at them, and Melissa smiled at them. "Good afternoon, team," she said. "Progress?"

"None," said a tall and somewhat gruff looking fellow to their left. "But we didn't really expect anything until we see the ship, now did we?"

"No, I suppose we didn't," she said. She turned to the Doctor. "I'd like to introduce you all to this man. His name is the Doctor-"

"-Smith. Dr. John Smith," he cut in, deciding a name would be best after all.

"Doctor... Smith is an offworld consultant, and he's graciously offered his services."

"Melissa, the last thing we need is some outsider sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong," said another young man sitting in a chair at a computer console.

"Really Tony? Because I thought we were basically taking a shot in the dark here."

Tony looked somewhat taken aback. "All I meant was that we can figure this out ourselves. It's the future of our planet that's at stake. We can't let someone else make the decisions."

"Oh, of course not!" the Doctor said. "It's still your choices that matter here. I'm just here to offer a little advice." _Not that any of that matters anyway_, he thought, but didn't let it show on his face.

"Ultimately it's my choice as head of the team who my researchers are, and I've chosen him. That's final, understood?"

There were quiet nods and mutterings of assent all around, and then introductions were made. Anthony - Tony for short - was the younger of the two men on the team, specializing in geophysics. Steven, the older man, was a biologist, who'd be determining the effect on local plant and animal life. And the other woman, who hadn't spoken up at all, was called Pam, and had been part of the terraforming team that had originally made this planet habitable. She was considerably older - probably at least in her seventies by the looks of her. But of all of them, she'd greeted him the most warmly.

"So," said the Doctor, pulling up a stool and putting his glasses on. "What's the plan?"

Tony spoke first. "The Karburrium that the Siboreans want is a crystal that occurs naturally near the interzone between the crust and the mantle of the planet. It's a Beryl stone that can transmit electrical impulses; they use it in their computers."

"But surely there's a synthetic option? Probably twice as fast and half again as expensive."

"There are newer technologies and methods, yes, and the newer ships in the fleet use them," Melissa said. "But their fleet is among the most well-engineered in the universe. They have vessels that have been in service for two centuries and are still running like new, and converting them over would require gutting the whole ship."

"So when they found an abundant source here..."

"Their mining council contacted the president almost immediately," Melissa said. "We've got to prove the colony won't be jeapordized before he'll allow the mining."

"We'll check the seismic disruption capacity, the emissions, the noise disruption, effects on plant and animal life, everything," Steven told the Doctor. "We want to be sure nobody claims we went into this blind or short sighted."

"And there's some opposition to the plan, I hear?"

"When this colony was founded, it was because the colonists wanted to be left alone," Tony said. "Then the Earth council who had funded the project to begin with forced the building of the spaceport, which basically shot the isolationist policies all to hell."

"Right. So, how do you all feel about the plan?"

"We don't have enough data to say, and we won't until we can examine the technology first hand," Pam said. She'd been quiet throughout most of the conversation, and even now she seemed shy.

"No, but, personally. Not as the presidential science team, but just as people who live here... what're you thinking?"

"I'm for it," Tony said.

"As am I," Melissa said. "It can't hurt to broaden our horizons."

"I'd vote no," Pam said, earning a sigh and an eyeroll from Tony. "I'm sorry, but I happen to think that the founders had it right; keeping to ourselves is in the best interests of everyone on the planet. Once you start to get involved in intergalactic affairs, you lose something. Sure, there's economic growth to be had but there's also something to be said for a close community."

"How about you Steven?"

"I could go either way. I'm going to wait and see what the data says."

"I can't wait to see it myself," the Doctor said. "When do we get our hands on it all? Tonight? Or tomorrow morning perhaps?"

"Hardly," the team leader said, rolling her eyes.

"Less than four days from now, I hope?"

She fixed him with a hard stare suddenly, and the Doctor felt as if he had said something he shouldn't just there. But a moment later she seemed to shrug it off and said, "No, sooner. There's a public press conference with the president and the Siborean ambassador tomorrow morning that you might want to attend... from the audience, I'm afraid. It's too late to get you certified. Then after a luncheon we meet with their science team, then a reception tomorrow night at the capitol, black tie with wine and hors d'oeuvres, the lot. I'm afraid we don't actually get to see the ship until the day after that."

"Oh, of course, can't rush these things. I assume I'm alright to bring a plus one? Well, plus one-and-a-half?"

"To the reception and press conference, sure. The luncheon is a closed door affair, and to be honest it'll be a stroke of luck if I can get _you _in there at all."

"Oh, well, I hope so. I'd hate to miss any of the fun."

"Yes," she said to herself as he made his way around the room again, ingratiating himself with the rest of the team. "Wouldn't we all?"


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: This is a short chapter but it was the only good place for a break in a while. So to make it up to y'all I'll post a new chapter Wednesday instead of waiting for next weekend.**

* * *

**Evening of the First Day**

The Doctor had showed her how to use the matter reconstitution station, but she preferred not to use it whenever possible. It was strange the way the mind coped with time travel, space ships, and aliens. She could get comfortable with all of these things, but not with eating food that was remolecularized out of other raw materials. So she stood in the TARDIS kitchen, cooking.

Luckily she had some natural talent at it. You didn't grow up with Judy Fabray, who made a gourmet dinner every night, without picking up a few things, and she had paid even more attention the last two months she'd lived at home. If she was going to be a mother, she had to figure this stuff out. She had to make slight adjustments to deal with the appliances - they were faster and more efficient than her mother's range and cooktop had been, and the pans had the heating elements built in so you could set them on any surface and start cooking. That made it far too easy to forget to take something off the heat before it burned."

"Oh, now that's brilliant," the Doctor said, strolling into the kitchen. "Do you know how long it's been since I came through the doors and smelled something so wonderful wafting from back here?"

"Ages, I imagine," she said. "You don't seem like the type to stop for a quiet meal every night."

"No," he said. "Not usually."

"I'm sorry if I'm slowing you down."

"Oh, maybe you are a bit but, honestly, the time I spent at your school, well... I liked the slower pace more than I thought I would. Maybe it's good to stop and smell the roses now and again.

"Yeah, I suppose so. I did a bit of that myself today."

"Did you now? What'd you get up to?"

"A little antiquing, actually?"

"Antiquing?"

"Yeah, with a guy I met in the plaza." Her smile faded and her face turned serious. "That's okay, isn't it? I mean, I'm allowed to talk to people and stuff, right?"

"Of course! Talk to whoever you like. You don't have to report to me all the time. I'm not your dad."

She laughed lightly. "I don't think anyone's ever given me that kind of freedom," she said.

"Well, best get used to it. You're your own person now, and I consider you a friend, not one of my kids."

"Thanks," she said. "That... actually means a lot."

He returned her smile. "So, antiquing?"

"Right. Someone, I'm not naming names, dropped me on a planet in the far flung future with ancient currency that nobody's used in centuries. Which I didn't dind out abiut until after I'd already had lunch."

"Ooh," he said.

"Yeah. Ooh. Fortunately enough this guy, Daniel, happened along. He paid my check at the restaurant in exchange for a small favor."

The Doctor grew serious. "What kind of favor? If he did anything he shouldn't have..."

She laughed at him. "Are you sure you're not my dad? Anyway, no, nothing weird. I told him what kind of money I had and he asked me if I'd be willing to get it appraised. Apparently my old dollar bills are something of a collectors item these days."

"See, this time travel thing's not so hard. I knew you'd get the hang of it sooner or later."

"What about you?"

"Oh, not much. Bamboozled my way onto a science team that's bound for the Siborean ship in a couple days time."

"Siborean?"

"They're a race from a nearby world who want to mine the surface of this planet for some rare minerals. The environmental team will be studying their technology to see if it poses a risk to the ecosphere."

"But you think they'll just blast the planet into uninhabitability and take what they want?"

"Well, maybe. It could be someone else entirely who wrecks the place. I'll have to check the weapons first but I got a good look at the device on the scanner back in the TARDIS. It's pretty distinctive so I ought to be able to determine if it's the same technology or not."

"Then what?"

"It'll be too late to do anything, but we can at least bring the evidence to the authorities in this sector. The Earth Alliance will be very interested to know what happened to their colony."

"So you're going up there tomorrow? Just... be careful."

"Not until the day after," he said. "Tomorrow there's a press conference sort of thing, and a luncheon, and then a reception in the evening."

"Oh, I heard about the rally. Daniel and I are meeting at a cafe near there. He's going to show me around."

"Bring him along! We'll meet at the rally, I'll pop off for the boring sciencey stuff in the afternoon while you two do as you like, then we'll rendezvous for the evening. It'll be a fancy night out on the town... wine and canapés at the capitol... who wouldn't like that?"

"I'm underage."

"Things are a little more lax in the future."

"And pregnant."

"Still got the canapés, though." He waggled his eyebrows excitedly.

She rolled her eyes. "I'll ask him when I see him."

"Great!"

"He might have other plans for the evening, though."

"You mean," he said smirking, "that you have a date?"

"Something like that."

The Doctor's face fell slightly. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"What do you mean?"

"Quinn... don't forget."

"Forget what?"

He tapped his own watch. "Just a few days left."

"Yeah, I know," she said, smiling weakly. "It's just to have someone to show me around. I'll get more out of the planet that way than I would wandering around alone."

"Sure," the Doctor said, but the slight blush to her cheeks and the way she wouldn't quite meet his gaze when she said it didn't escape him.


	8. Chapter 8

**OK! I made it! Wednesday! ...OK, maybe it's Thursday but like by one minute. Cut me a break ;)**

* * *

**Morning of the Second Day**

"Woah," Quinn said as she and the Doctor came around the corner in the plaza. Yesterday there'd been only a few people scattered here and there. Today there was a huge mass of people in a gigantic crowd, all pressed up against a stage that had been erected near the north end of the square.

"Yeah, it's quite the crowd," he said, looking over the mass of people. "Look alive. Those are my companions for the next couple of days," he said as the four members of the science team filed onto the stage behind a distinguished looking man in a suit - presumably the colony President. They took seats behind him, and he tapped his microphone and cleared his throat for silence.

"Everyone on this planet is unreasonably tall," Quinn said. "I can't really see anything."

"C'mon, this way, then," the Doctor said, pointing to a set of steps leading up to a store. The change in elevation was just enough that she could look over the whole crowd with ease now.

"Good morning, Fragaria colony!" President Wyler said, sounding overly enthusiastic. "Welcome to a new era of prosperity and connectedness for our people! This is a great day for us, when we leave behind our past history of exclusion and isolation, and take the first steps into a whole new and wider universe! This is the day we put our colony on the map, so to speak."

There was a smattering of applause from the assembled crowd. As Quinn looked around at the assembled faces, the crowd seemed to divide itself into thirds. Some of the younger colonists seemed genuinely excited by the President's speech and weren't afraid to show it as they clapped, whistled, and whooped elatedly. Some of the others in the same age group seemed far less impressed, though, refusing to clap and seeming almost disinterested in what he was saying.

The third group was the most unnerving, though. Any of the older colony members weren't disinterested, and they definitely weren't excited. They were regarding the president with a look of undisguised hostility.

"I know some of you have doubt about your government's determination to carry though with the plan; still others believe it is the wrong action to take entirely. I want to reassure both groups, that the resolve of the government to ensure that we are successful in this endeavor has never been stronger, but that our desire to see the colony's prospects expand do not extend so far as to be reckless with the natural resources of the planet. We will not rush into anything foolhardily. Even now, the science team assembled behind me are in the process of discovering what effect, if any, the mining operation will have.

"We as a people are embarking on a new journey, and it's my honor to take that journey with you!" Again Quinn noticed that he seemed artificially excited, and the crowd didn't seem placated in any way. "I'll take questions," the President said, and a row of reporters near the front of the crowd started yelling them out as quickly as possible. She couldn't hear their questions, and she might have at least listened to the responses he gave if the Doctor hadn't grabbed her hand and started tugging her towards the stage.

"Will you watch it?" she hissed at him. "You're going to dislocate my shoulder one of these days."

"C'mon, I'll introduce you to the team."

"Uh, actually, I'd better get to the cafe if I don't want Daniel to think I stood him up," she said. "You understand, don't you?"

"Sure, sure," he said. "Absolutely. Have a good time. And just... be careful."

"I will," she said. "See you for the reception tonight."

She made her way through the crowd, sticking to the perimeter as much as possible to avoid getting caught up in the rush. She wasn't exactly in the mood for being jostled along with a crowd. Fortunately most people were sticking around to hear the President respond to the journalists' questions, so she was able to slip away fairly easily. She passed the park where she'd sung the impromptu duet yesterday and smiled at the memory. It felt good to be bold and adventuresome, to be doing the kinds of things she had done when she ruled the social ladder, except this time it didn't matter; this time she could do those kinds of things just because she wanted to, and it didn't matter what anyone thought.

She sat down at the same booth in the cafe, ordered an iced tea, and waited for Daniel to arrive.

And waited.

And waited.

And forty seven minutes later, not that she was counting thank you very much, just when she was about to give up hope, he stumbled in, looking extremely bedraggled. He sat down at her table, gasping for breath and running his hands through sweat-drenched hair. "Hey," he said by way of greeting.

"Good morning," she said. "I was wondering if you were going to show up."

"Sorry, I really am. How was the press conference?"

"I thought you were going," she said.

"That was the plan. I got sidetracked."

"Sidetracked?"

"Yeah. There was a break in my parents' research. Like... a big one. Revolutionary, you might say. It's the kind of thing that comes up maybe once in a lifetime."

"And so you're here to cancel on me," she said, looking down at the table.

"What? No! Well... yeah, I guess, but..." He looked across the table at her dejected expression and couldn't bear to hurt her that way. "What I mean is, I can't take you to the museums and the cultural centers like I wanted to, but... well, you could come with me."

"Come with you? To, what, hang around some lab all day?"

"Uhm, well, and to collect some data. Yeah."

The thing was, Quinn wanted to be a better person, she really did. It sometimes felt like every step forward was countered by another step back. Sometimes New Quinn really had to fight to keep Old Quinn in check. This was one of those times. Old Quinn wanted to say that she wouldn't be caught dead doing something as nerdy as that because she would secure her place in the recordbooks of loserdom for all eternity. On the other hand, New Quinn not only didn't want to be rude, but if she was completely honest, she thought it might be fun to see a proper research lab with test tubes and computers and equipment and... whatever else. "Why not?" she heard New Quinn say through a smile.


	9. Chapter 9

Dr. Allender found the Doctor shortly after the rally. He stuck out like a sore thumb in the crowd, especially the way he kept scanning the skies above the square like he expected the fire of God to rain down any moment. "Doctor Smith!" she called. "Doctor Smith, this way! We don't want to be late for the luncheon."

"So, you scored me an invite after all?" He asked, coming to join her. "Thank you, I'm much obliged."

"Being the president's right hand gal has its perks," she said. "One of them is opening doors that should be locked."

"I do much the same," he said, smiling.

She handed him a badge which he clipped on his lapel. "Don't lose that," she said. "In fact don't take it off at all if you can avoid it. It's got your tracer in it."

"Oh, does it now?" he asked, taking a closer look. "Tinier and tinier all the time," he said. "I assume it's linked up to the global teleport net?"

"Global and extra-atmospheric," she replied, almost seeming to gloat. " 'Only the best for the president's own' and all that."

"Oh, yes, yes, of course," he said. "So, what's the game plan?"

"The rest of the team are waiting for us," she said, leading him towards a set of doors behind the stage. "We'll assemble then meet with the dignitaries. This lunch is just about meeting and greeting," she said. "They don't want to go into any of the data this afternoon. They say there'll be time enough when we get aboard their ship for all that. They just want to get to know us a bit better." She had a sneer about her, as of she were disgusted by the thought.

"It seems a good idea to me," the Doctor said, probing for more information. "Always good to know who you're dealing with."

"Yeah, I guess," she said, opening the doors and ushering him inside. "I just want to get started so we can put this all behind us."

They had walked into a small room where the rest of the science team was assembled. "I'm eager to get started too," he continued, "but whether this works out or not depends on a lot more than toxicity readings and radiation output and decibel levels. There's the human component to consider as well. Are these people you can be happy working with? That should be the real question."

"Maybe if this were a social call," Steven said, "but it isn't. We need to make our choices based upon empirical evidence and facts, not emotions."

"Yeah, but... isn't there room for both, when you think about it? I mean, you can't rely exclusively on one or the other. That's what you've got both halves of your brain for."

"Well, speaking for myself, and I think the others too," Steven said, "I'm mainly concerned with the environment on this planet. I've put a lot of work into it and I don't want to see it destroyed." The other scientists were nodding as well. "I couldn't care less if everyone feels like singing campfire songs together just as long as the ecosphere isn't damaged."

"Don't do that," the Doctor said. "You can't just focus on one thing. You have to think about the whole picture. That's the kind of thing that gets people into trouble."

They were interrupted by a knock from the inner door. A porter entered, dressed in a crisply pressed uniform and white gloves. "The senator is prepared for you now," he said, holding the door open for them.

"Senator?" the Doctor asked, whispering into Dr. Allender's ear over her shoulder as he walked behind her.

"Senator Colin Wellsby," she replied. "He's handling the negotiations from our side, along with the Siborean ambassador." They filed into the next room and stood in a line, like military officers awaiting inspection, except the Doctor who stood off to the side.

"I'd have thought the president would handle that himself," he said, still talking a mile a minute. "When do I get to meet Mr. President, anyhow?"

"You don't," said and older man, storming into the room as brusquely and artificially importantly as possible. "Not if I have anything to say about it."

"Ooh, that's a shame," the Doctor replied.

"The President is far too busy to deal with this. There's a storm system moving in off the east coast that has a 23% chance of reaching the colony, the re-election campaign is starting up in five weeks, and a radical political group is threatening to organize a boycott of the entire commercial district if we open ourselves up to outside trade."

"Seems like the kind of thing he'd want to keep tabs on first hand, then," the Doctor said, and Dr. Allender shushed him.

The senator moved down the line, looking at all of the members of the science team with scrutiny. "Straighten that tie," he said as he passed by Tony, and, "tighten up that hair," as he passed Pam. Finally he reached the Doctor who was still not standing in line with the others. "So you're the offworld expert, swooping in at the eleventh hour. I can't say that I was too pleased when the good doctor here insisted we have a new addition so late in the proceedings." He looked the Doctor over up and down, from the spiky hairdo all the way down to the trainers on his feet. "And the current state of affairs is not helping matters," he said with a sneer.

"With an attitude like that it can't be any wonder that nobody in the colony expects this to work out," he said, and the room seemed to grow colder. "Did I say something wrong?"

"The people in this colony, Mr. Smith, have the utmost respect for and faith in their government," the Senator growled out.

"It doesn't seem that way out on the street," the Doctor replied. He held his hands up in a gesture of innocent surrender. "Just an observation."

"Doctor," Melissa said gently, "what you say may be true, but the Senator is trying to remind you of the... company line, shall we say? We don't want the Siboreans to feel as if they're unwelcome here."

"They're not fools," the Doctor replied. Nobody said anything but he thought that maybe, just maybe, he had seen Dr. Allender roll her eyes. "They're likely to figure out that public opinion isn't in their favor."

"But it is," the senator said, "for almost a third of the population. Another 27% are openly against the proposal, but the remaining 40%, by far the majority, are completely ambivalent. They don't care one way or the other. Our job is to minimize the appearance of the opponents and maximize that of the people who are genuinely interested, as well as putting our best foot forward." He looked down at the Doctor's trainers again. "No matter how poorly presented."

The Doctor looked down his nose at the senator. "I've never put much stock in political games and image management," he said.

"Then it is a lucky thing that you are not one of the campaign managers for this initiative. I am." He turned and walked back out of the room. "We'll send for you in a few moments." Then he leaned over to the porter. "Get that man a new pair of shoes."


	10. Chapter 10

**A/n: A couple people noticed that this story has romance as a subtype... and you're about to get some in this chapter. Let me know how it goes; I have no experience writing romance and so I'm interested to know what people think of it. Feedback - good or bad - is welcome!**

* * *

**Afternoon of the Second Day**

They made their way to a train station on the edge of town. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"Out there," he said, pointing up at the distant cliff face. She could just make out the hangar she and the Doctor had seen when they first landed. Away from the spaceport, there was a huge expanse of flat land, tundra-like in climate, with a huge cliff off in the distance. It looked like it just sprang up out of the ground, surrounded as it was by tiny little plants and vast tracts of emptiness. The monorail track led out there in an almost straight line, disappearing into a tunnel under the cliff where the two met.

"Is the whole place yours?"

"Sort of. We're the only ones there but that was the original spaceport before they decided to build a free standing outpost instead. I guess everyone just prefered the idea of an open air setup, more of that retro Earth feel, than being locked up inside a huge chunk of rock. Which I can't say as I blame them about, if I'm honest. That's why I spend so much time in the spaceport, after all."

The train ride was swift, but with no stops to make and nothing to route around, that wasn't really surprising. What _was_ surprising was Daniel's excitement. The closer they got to the facility, the more excited he seemed to get, like he couldn't wait to get up there and start whatever science-y thing he was up to. He'd said something about this being his parents' research, and she'd assumed that meant he had been conscripted into service. It didn't look that way now; he seemed to be just as excited as his parents about this. She wondered what it was like to care that much about the same things your parents did, and she couldn't help feeling envious of that.

They disembarked at a train station underground, and he showed her to the elevator. Six floors up, they stepped out into a hangar bay right out of Star Wars. One large open wall showed a perfectly framed view of the spaceport including the central spire. Light strips on the floor glowed and flickered with arrow patterns indicating the way to parking berths along the walls, but most of them were empty. In fact there were only two little ships in the massive hangar - one an angular craft that somehow looked outdated despite being years ahead of anything Quinn had ever seen, and a second ship that was sleek, black, and almost completely spherical.

"Welcome to Parker Enterprises," he said, spreading his arms wide. "Impressive, isn't it?"

"I thought you said you were doing research."

"Yeah, we are. I am."

"I was expecting test tubes and beakers and chemicals and..."

"... boring stuff?"

"Well, yeah."

"Oh, no. I wouldn't have turned down an afternoon on the town with a beautiful girl for just any old thing. But like I said, there's work to be done." He ran over to the sphere-ship, pressed a button on the hull, and stood back as an iris-like hatch opened in the back. He hauled himself up into the craft, held out his right hand, and said, "So. Coming?"

"Coming _where_? You still haven't told me anything!"

"There's a storm brewing just off the east coast. It has the makings of being a hurricane, of a magnitude we haven't seen in a few years. And if we go, right now, then we can watch it form!"

"You're... a weatherman?"

"Stormchaser!" He said. The inside of the craft was lined with instruments and monitors; graphs pulsed with information, indicators flashed and lights grew brighter and dimmed. An alarm started to sound and a red dot lit up over the ocean on a map. "Clock's ticking, Quinn!" he said, grinning from ear to ear. "I gotta go, with or without you." He extended his hand once again.

She reached up and took it, put one foot inside the ship, then hesitated. "Is it safe?"

"Don't you trust me?"

"I... I don't know! I barely know you!"

"Well, you can trust me. Trust me on that. Er..." And he hauled her up into the ship. "You know what I mean." There were two seats in the cockpit and he took the one on the left, leaving her the one on the right. From inside, she could see that the front of the sphere was closer to being a bubble. It wasn't like a plane where you could only look out some tiny windows. The whole curved wall before them was transparent for maximum visibility. "It's about a fifteen minute flight straight there moving at top speed, so hang on tight!"

Before she could say anything in response the sphere lifted gently off the ground, then hurtled through the open bay door, passing through some kind of forcefield on the way out.

"Daniel!" She yelled as the sphere burst away from the mountain top and the ground rushed away from them. "How fast does this thing go?"

"Fast!" he replied, laughing.

"It's not funny! I'm going to be sick if you don't ease off on the accelerator."

"Sorry, no can do. We've got to get there before the storm kicks off if we want any good data."

"Tropical storms take _days _to develop, not minutes," she growled, leaning over and resting her head on her hands. It was already a struggle not to be sick just sitting in a chair these days; the roller coaster ride that this equated to wasn't making things any better.

"That's supposed to be true, but it's happening right now. And we're nowhere near this planet's tropical zone," he said.

"I thought hurricanes were only possible if there was hot air."

"That's supposed to be true, too." He spared her a glance. "You doing okay?"

"Yeah. Great," she said, managing to sound both sick and sarcastic at once.

"Just close your eyes until we get there. It's not so bad if you can't see the clouds and everything rushing past you."

Reluctantly she did as he suggested. It did, surprisingly enough, make things better. If it weren't for the unearthly sounds the craft made she could almost be in the back seat of the family car on a long family vacation.

After what seemed like only a few minutes their acceleration suddenly stopped, and they hovered in one place for a minute. "Did we make it? We are alive, aren't we? Is this heaven?"

"Oh, ha ha," he said sarcastically. "I'm not that bad of a pilot."

"You're not that smooth a pilot either." She rubbed her stomach, where the baby was squirming. "You scared her, too."

"Scared who?"

She looked at him like he was an idiot. "My baby. I'm pregnant. Don't tell me you didn't notice."

"Oh, I suspected," he said. "But my dad taught me one thing, one life lesson, that I will never forget. After one particularly embarrassing Christmas with my aunt, he took me aside and said, 'Son, until she says so herself, never assume a woman is pregnant unless she is giving birth at that exact moment.' It's not much in the way of father-to-son wisdom but it's saved me from a few awkward situations in life... or at least from having Aunt Irene throw a turkey at my head."

Quinn couldn't help herself; she had to laugh at that. "You're a dork," she said, shaking her head and smiling.

"My dad was a dork," he said. "The worst you can accuse me of is being a dork-quoter. Now, take a look at this." He gestured out the window, and she looked out at the surrounding area. They were hovering over the ocean now, and as nice of a day as it had been back at the spaceport, it was the exact opposite out here. The clouds were angry and dark, and they almost seemed to boil in the sky.

"What's happening?"

"Like I said, a hurricane is forming. And like you said, it's doing it faster than should be possible."

"What's causing that?"

"I don't know, but that's what we're researching. Storm systems form more rapidly on this planet than any other on record, and nobody knows why. The director of operations at the spaceport, Harold Malone, noticed it and called my dad in. They brought me here when I was just two years old."

"So this is the only life you've ever known? Buzzing around in spaceships and flying into hurricanes?"

A heavy rain had started pelting the outside of the ship, and lightning flashed in the distance. "Yeah, this is pretty much it. What's going on down there?"

She looked where he was pointing but couldn't see anything. "Can you move us closer? It's too far to really see..."

"No," he said, cutting her off mid sentence. He said it stiffly, with finality; the discussion was closed. "But, one thing I can do..." he pressed a button and suddenly they lurched forward towards the storm, except she didn't feel a pull of acceleration. She looked at him, confused, then reached a hand out to touch the window.

Except it wasn't a window at all. It was a giant curved screen; taking up the whole front quadrant of the sphere. Now that she was looking for it she could see the glow and feel the heat on her hand.

He grinned. "The optical zoom on these is ridiculous."

"How far can you zoom in on this?"

"From the cliffside, I can read the lunch specials off the sign outside the cafe as if it were across the street," he said.

"That's amazing."

"Amazing? Nah, just standard optics." He had stood and moved to the back of the craft, pressing buttons and tracking graphs on the screens.

"What are you measuring?"

"Temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, angular momentum... You name it I'm measuring it."

"And what happens when the storm becomes a full-blown hurricane? Can this ship survive that kind of wind?"

He stopped what he was doing, staring straight ahead at the terminal. "No. It can't."

She swallowed nervously. "Shouldn't we get out of here then?"

"The storm's still forming. It's not urgent yet. But as it stands, there's probably only half an hour or so before it gets nasty." He looked at her and smiled. "We'll be off before then, I-"

The ship lurched violently to the left and the cabin suddenly went dark, all the light from the giant screen suddenly gone. All that was left was the glow of the instruments in the back, plus one single red light on the console.

"What is that? What happened?" Quinn asked, gripping the seat for dear life

"Lightning strike, it shorted out the electrical system," he said.

Her eyes grew wide. "Are we gonna crash?"

"No, I can still hear the repulsors running. Oh, but you might want to strap in "

"Why?" she asked, fumbling for the seatbelt in the relative dark.

"Because..." Before he could finish the sentence, the ship started to dip to the left. Unable to buckle the seatbelt in time, Quinn was tipped out of her seat. She leaned back, trying to find purchase on the floor that was now at a 60 degree angle. Despite her best efforts she was now lurching across the pod towards the left wall.

"Here, I've got you," Daniel said, reaching out and grabbing her to keep her from slamming into the opposite bulkhead. He wasn't entirely successful at keeping his own footing, however, and he tripped backwards over his own left foot. The two of them ended up as a jumble pressed against the curved wall, with Quinn pressed into his chest. "Because," he said, restarting the sentence from a few moments before, "the right repulsor is the only one working now, so the ship can rotate around it like a tire swing around a tree branch."

"Uh-huh," she said. "Got that."

"Right. Do you think you can straighten up, or..."

"I'll try." She put an arm against the bulkhead over his left shoulder and tried to push off, but her hand slipped and she ended up crashing into his chest again. He brought his right arm up to catch her instinctively.

"That didn't uh... work," he said. He was basically hugging her now for as close as they were, and her nose was almost touching his.

"No," she said, but she was somewhat distracted by him. Being this close, she couldn't help but realize just how firm... no, 'chiseled' was the word... his chest was, and how strong his arm around her waist felt. She shook her head to clear it, trying desperately to be annoyed with the situation and somehow not managing. "I can't believe you brought me up in this death trap. I can't believe I _let _you. I've got to stop trusting guys. You're all the same. 'I love you! She's just a teammate! It's perfectly safe. I got it.' You'll say anything."

"Yeah. I'm sorry about that."

"Uh-huh, I'll bet you are," she replied sarcastically.

"No, really, I am. I wouldn't ever want anything bad to happen to you. I really wouldn't." His voice was soft now, and slow. Somewhere in the last few minutes her hair had been tossed about, and it was falling into her face now. "Here, you've got... yeah," he said, brushing it back with his fingertips and tucking it back behind her left ear.

"Uh, thanks," she said. With an unobstructed view she could see his eyes clearly, and even in the dim red light they seemed to shine. They stared into each others' eyes for a few moments, and she couldn't be sure, but he might have been moving his lips ever so slightly towards her own, when the ship suddenly leveled off with a shudder and the lights came back on. She nearly jumped a foot backwards towards her seat, avoiding his gaze.

"Oh, uh, good," he said. "Automatic power cycle kicked in."

"Yeah, good. Do you... er... have the data you need?"

"Uh-huh, yeah. Got it."

"Good. Can we go back? I want to get my feet on solid ground again."

"Sure," he said, smiling at her weakly.


	11. Chapter 11

The Doctor entered the reception area with the rest of the science team. As they all stood at one end of the table he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, grimacing.

"What's the matter?" Pam whispered.

"I don't like these shoes," he said, looking at the brown loafers they'd made him put on. "No good for running."

"Are you planning on doing a few laps round the banquet hall?" She asked incredulously.

"Planning? No. I never plan to be running. It just sort of... happens." The door at the far end of the room opened, and the senator and all the members of the science team perked up and paid attention. "Here we go..." he muttered.

The Siborean entourage came through the door at the opposite end of the room. They were mainly humanoid, dressed in all black, but with a dark grey pallor and creases in their skin, with a single line of coarse hair running from the right temple and wrapping around to the back of the left ear. They looked like they were about 100 years old, like they'd stepped right out of a black and white movie. Of course age was a funny thing across species; there was every possibility none of these guys were older than twenty. Most likely they were somewhere in between.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the one in the lead said, "I am chancellor Vitak, representing the Siborean Procurement Council." He stepped forward and raised his hand in a sort of greeting.

The senator stepped forward and mirrored the gesture. "Senator Colin Wellsby, representing the presidential science team."

"We received your invitation. Nevertheless, the ambassador has remained aboard our ship, as agreed upon," Vitak said. "Your team will meet with him aboard our vessel."

"We understand," the senator replied. "We simply thought he might wish to get to know the colonists and the science team before we opened formal negotiations tomorrow," he said. "We meant no disrespect."

"Understood," Vitak replied. "I will relay your message. He may choose to attend the reception this evening, but I would not... cease breathing."

"I think the expression is, 'I wouldn't hold my breath'," the Doctor chimed in.

"Don't speak out of turn," the senator said, agitation apparent in his voice.

"On the contrary," Vitak said. "We appreciate honesty above all else. If we have made an error we would much prefer to know."

"Your wisdom is outweighed only by your generosity, chancellor," the senator replied, in a tone that was so overly sweet it made the Doctor sick to his stomach. He didn't like all this - all the games, the spin, the keeping up of appearances and the pandering. It would be so much easier and so much better if they'd just lay all their cards on the table. Unfortunately that wasn't how negotiations worked.

There were two other Siboreans behind the chancellor but none of them ever spoke a word. In fact, apart from the Doctor's statement, nobody else said anything apart from the chancellor and the senator until the very end of the meeting. He made a note to try to talk to them after the meeting.

"You did say you would pass our invitation along to the ambassador?" Melissa said. "Only we'd love to see him at tonight's function."

"As I said, I will tell him, but I find it unlikely that he will deviate from our prior agreement and come down to the planet."

"I see," she said, turning around and following the others through the door. "If that's the way they want to play it... fine," she said through clenched teeth and a scowl, probably thinking that nobody had heard her. But the Doctor had, and he vowed to keep a closer eye on her.

**Evening of the Second Day**

"Quinn! C'mon, we're gonna be late!" the Doctor called from the console room. He circled the console twisting dials that didn't need twisting, checking readings that didn't need to be checked, just looking for something to do.

"I'm coming! It's impossible to find something to wear in this wardrobe," she called back.

"There must be five thousand outfits in there!"

"Yeah, sure, but not many are formal attire, and it seems like you haven't got a maternity section," she replied. "Why do you have so many womens' clothes, anyway? I know they're not all yours cause the pictures you showed me from when you had your renewals..."

"Regenerations," he corrected.

"...they were all guys. And you just don't strike me as the cross dressing type. Kurt did, you not so much. So what is it?"

"Well, it is a fully stocked time capsule. You've got to be prepared to stop in any time period and blend in, after all. That plus all the odds and ends that others of my friends have left behind..."

"You keep girls' clothes when they leave? That's creepy."

"What d'you want me to do, give them to the Salvation Army?"

"I suppose not. Now, how do I look?" She stepped out through the door into the console room, wearing a simple black dress. A wide strap covered each shoulder, and the pleated fabric came to about knee length. She'd opted for a single string of white pearls around the neck to complete the look.

He smiled. "Very nice, very elegant," he said.

"It's a little tight around the middle," she said. "We're going to have to fill that wardrobe out."

"We will. I promise. After this, shopping trip. You and me. Ooh! The fifth moon of Panlamax! That's where I'll take you. They've got shops built right into the treetops. A whole shopping complex right on top of the biggest forest in fifty light years. Of course, the main population is insectoid in nature so it might be hard to find something for someone who's less than eight feet tall but... Idano. We'll try the kids section."

"You just make some of these up, don't you?"

"Me? Tell tales? Never."

"Come on, let's go. You didn't want to be late."

They stepped out of the TARDIS into the square. "Will Daniel be joining us?"

"I think so," she said. "I told him to meet us up ahead."

"Still just a tour guide?" he asked with a hint of warning in his voice.

"A tour guide who's a scientist," she said. "You'd like him. He's mapping out storm systems all over the planet. He says that tropical storms form in cold water and in a tenth of the time necessary on this planet. We actually flew out to see one."

"One of the senators said something about a hurricane on the east coast," he replied. "Interesting."

They'd been walking for about a block when she spotted him off in the distance and waved to him. "That's him," she said. "Be nice," she added quietly as he approached them.

"What? I'm always nice."

"Yeah, right."

"What? _What_?!"

"Just... ssh."

"Hi," Daniel said, coming up to meet them and, unsure of what to do once he got there considering the awkwardness of their encounter over the ocean earlier, shaking both of their hands.

"Daniel, this is the Doctor," she said. "Doctor, Daniel, Daniel, Doctor."

"Hello," they said at the same time, neither looking the other in the eye.

"Way to keep it awkward, fellas," she said.

Both of them stood with their hands in their pockets, still not saying anything else. The Doctor broke the silence first. "Right. Well. Capitol's this way. C'mon."

Quinn rolled her eyes. He wasn't happy unless he was taking charge of some situation or other. She fell into step behind the guys, letting them talk.

Only they didn't talk. They seemed content to take the whole journey in silence. After another block Quinn had had enough. "Daniel, you should tell the Doctor about your research," she said in a way that made it abundantly clear that it wasn't a request.

He cleared his throat. "My parents started the research," he said. "Weather patterns are abnormal on this planet, and nobody knows why."

"Really? Abnormal how?"

"Storm systems are supposed to be trackable. We ought to be able to predict weather patterns 7-10 days in advance at least, but around here, storms form in a fraction of the time. A clear day can turn into a hurricane in an hour. The first warning you get about a tornado is when it rips through the residential district. And we've seen extreme weather where humidity, barometric pressure, and temperature aren't the right conditions."

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean tornadoes in the snow, hurricanes in the arctic regions..."

"And all forming faster than they should be?"

"Yeah."

The Doctor was intrigued now. "The speed at which a storm system forms," he said, eyes darting around but not looking at anything as he was now lost deep in thought, "they're faster than anywhere else on record?"

Daniel nodded. "Especially for a planet of this size."

"By what factor?"

"Almost 11 to 1."

"And is that a constant?"

"No. It was as low as 5 to 1 when my parents started. But the rate has been increasing steadily and it seems to be the same no matter what kind of storm we're talking about."

"Standard deviation?"

"Plus or minus twelve hours."

The Doctor let out a long, slow whistle. "That's not long considering the time scale we're discussing."

"No. It's the biggest mystery on the planet."

"Hm," he said. "I'd like to look at your data sometime... if you don't mind, that is."

"No, of course not," he replied. "I'd love an objective outside look!"

"Consider it a date," he said. "Tomorrow, we'll find a time," he said.

Quinn rolled her eyes behind them. It was almost too easy. All you had to do was get the nerds talking science and they'd be friends for life. Who said knowing how to manipulate high school psyches wouldn't ever come in useful?

The two of them probably could have swapped technical terms that nobody else would ever understand all night if they hadn't arrived at the capitol building right around that time. The Doctor flashed their invitations and they were ushered inside, handed beverages and served a variety of appetizers. The Doctor made a face as he snatched seven crab cakes from a passing server and put them on his plate.

"What's the problem now?" Quinn asked him.

"I prefer a buffet table," he said. "Just waiting for a server to come by - or not - with what you want... it's chaos. It's worse than chaos, it's unknowable. It's like... Schrödinger's Serving Tray."

She rolled her eyes as she switched the champagne she'd been handed upon entering with an ice water from another server. "I just don't think you're happy unless there's something to complain about."

"That's not true. I enjoy things without complaining a lot. It's just, there's less to complain about if you can have a crab cake when you want it. Oooh! The senator!" he said, waving to the government official and walking over towards him.

Daniel stared after him, open mouthed. "He sure can change the topic quickly, can't he?"

"Unfortunately, yes. I don't know what's worse... not being able to understand everything he says, or _being able to_."

"Wow. That _is _a scary thought."

"Yeah. I'm getting there though."

They followed him over to the small group he was talking to. Despite being only a few seconds ahead of them he was already talking and gesturing animatedly.

"...which is why I think it'd be a shame if your people and theirs couldn't come to an agreement," he was saying.

Quinn didn't get what he was talking about. They knew, both of them, that this wouldn't work out at all... but then again, the Doctor had said that he couldn't say for sure whether the Siboreans were actually responsible until he'd seen their ship and technology firsthand. But the conversation that came moments later made her realize that was exactly the information he was fishing for.

"That is what we hope for as well," said one of the two Siboreans, neither of which he'd introduced her or Daniel to. "No planet we have ever encountered before has had such an abundance of the mineral. We hope the benefit we would reap will be paid by the resources we are prepared to provide."

"Mm-hm," the Doctor said. He moved in closer. "'course, if a mutually agreeable arrangement couldn't be reached, well... I suppose an advanced race like yours could easily take what it wanted by force, now, couldn't it?"

The man's expression grew confused, as if he were unsure if the Doctor were suggesting a course of action, or accusing him of something. He took a sip of his drink and said, somewhat cautiously, "You speak like a member of the War Council."

"War Council?"

"Yes. The Procurement Council would never authorize such measures as you suggest, Mr. Smith."

"The Procurement Council, the War Council... just how many councils are there on Siborea?"

"Every major aspect of our society is decided upon via council," he said. "No council overlaps with another, and the decision of the council is final unless opposed by nine others."

"Sounds susceptible to groupthink and manipulation," the Doctor said.

"Not at all. By restricting decision-making to a group of no more than 10, we are allowed to make decisions quickly. Our people are not polarized on major issues, and we do not sputter endlessly in debate and circular speech. The council meets, a decision is made, and action is taken. It is quite freeing."

"Yeah, until someone comes along to take advantage of the situation."

"How do you know who's who?" Daniel asked, and all eyes turned to look at him. He swallowed. "What I mean to say is, if everyone on your planet is in a council, but only one... how do you know who's in and who's not?"

The man smiled. "Not everyone is involved in a council. And most are governed by the council representative of their village or settlement on the planet. The planetary senate on the other hand consists of ten councils, including the War and Procurement Councils. They make planet-wide decisions and off-world policy. And," he said, running a hand over the curved line of hair running diagonally around his head, "each wears their hair as the badge of office."

The Doctor's face lit up in spite of himself. "You style your hair differently depending upon your governmental branch? Oh, that's new. I never get tired of this galaxy. Never."

"If you are truly interested in understanding our ways and our government, Dr. Smith," the Siborean said, not noticing the eye roll and glazed look on the senator's face, "I would be happy to tell you about our governing process in detail."

"I'd love nothing more," the Doctor said with a grin.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Another chapter with romace and emotions and stuff, something I don't always do particularly well at. So extra big thanks go out to DrWhoFan71, who I recruited in as a last minute beta reader after their reviews a couple chapters back revealed things I had failed to consider. Your kind but necessary criticisms on the upcoming chapters are, I think, helping tremendously and I hope this chapter feels like an improvement over the alpha version when you read it. Part of my problem, I'm discovering, is that I tend to write the stories out of order, skipping back and between the beginning, middle, and end, and as a result I have a tendancy to slip and let characters have knowledge that the haven't actually acquired yet in the linear course of the story. Whoops! So I've made some tweaks and adjustments, added new dialogue, and hopefully made everything better than it was before I started. At least, I hope so!**

**Thanks, all, and once again reviews are appreciated tremendously! They're the primary way I grow as an author, so bring it on... both your praise and your criticism. Thanks!**

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Once the heavy politics had started up, Quinn and Daniel had made a polite exit out the back of the Capitol building, walking together down a moonlit path.

"C'mon, this way," he said. "The path goes down by the river. When it catches the starlight it looks like the whole river turns to a flow of diamonds." He took he hand and led her on.

"Ooh, not so fast," she said, laughing. "My poor feet."

"You'd do better if you wore shoes with some arch supports," he said.

"I'd do better if my ankles weren't swollen to the size of grapefruit," she replied. They had come to a sort of park along the banks of the river. Trees, flowers, and manicured grass looked out over a wide spot in the water. He motioned for her to take a seat with her back against one of the trees, and then put her feet in his lap, unstrapping her heels and putting them next to the tree. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Foot massage," he replied, already rubbing small circles. "Unless you'd rather I didn't."

"Don't you dare stop," she said.

"That's what I thought."

She leaned back against the tree, enjoying the, quite frankly, magical work he was doing on her sore feet. "Where'd you learn this?" she asked, and she noticed that her voice was a little breathier than she might have liked.

"One of my mom's friends was pregnant when I was fifteen, and she basically moved in with us towards the end. I got roped into doing it almost every night."

"Well you're a natural."

"How far along are you, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Somewhere around four, four-and-a-half months."

"Hey, halfway there. Congrats."

"Urgh. I cannot wait for it to be over."

"I thought this was supposed to be the most magical time of your life," he teased.

"I've heard women say that all my life. I'm pretty sure they're crazy or lying. I wouldn't put it past them. It's probably just a big conspiracy to make sure the species doesn't go extinct."

"Really? That miserable?"

"I can't eat without puking, I can't sleep without my back aching in the morning. Sometimes she even wakes me up in the middle of the night."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. Two in the morning is a perfect time for gymnastics, or so she seems to think."

"So there's nothing pleasant about it?"

"I'm an unwed teenage mother," she said. "I'm not really supposed to be enjoying this pregnancy. Maybe the kids I'll have later, when I'm married and ready for them, will be different, but..."

"Yes?" he prompted.

She sighed. "Well, sometimes, when she isn't waking me up to do it... I like feeling her kicking. It's like, despite everything that's happened, I can take a step back and realize that this whole thing is kind of a miracle. I'm creating a brand new person. A whole human being who'll grow up, have friends, get married, have kids of her own... and I did that. It's my job to make sure she's strong and healthy, and when she feels like she's going to punch her way out, well, I feel like I accomplished that." He was smiling to himself, like he was trying to hold back laughter. "What's so funny?"

"Oh, just listening to you. You became quite the philosopher just there."

"Oh, shut up."

"No, you did! Not that it's a bad thing, you just got kind of deep on me."

"If you're going to poke fun at my paradigm altering experiences, I'm going to change the subject. So, you're a stormchaser, hm?"

"Yes ma'am. We wanted to know how storm systems form, and the easiest way was to get a close look."

"I'd have thought mankind would know everything there was to know about weather by now."

"Why do you say that?"

_Because we seemed to almost know everything centuries ago in my time_, was the first thought, but she shoved it down. "No reason. So, aren't you a little young to be doing that? You can't be older than twenty one."

"Nineteen," he replied.

"How do you end up doing that at nineteen?"

"My parents started the research. I'm just carrying on."

"So, they do the bulk of the work and you assist?"

"Uh, no," he said. His rubbing slowed but didn't stop. "They, uh... passed away. Last year. It was an accident. They flew too close to one of the nastier storm systems and..."

She covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, Daniel, I'm so sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," he said, looking her right in the eyes.

"What for?"

"I shouldn't have taken you up there with me. It wasn't safe. I thought that..." he took a deep breath, trying not to let the emotions get the better of him. "I thought that if we kept our distance we'd be okay. That's how my parents got in trouble. I was only thinking of the wind and the shearing forces on the hull, not the lightning or..."

She put her hand on his arm. "It's okay," she said.

"No it isn't! I should have learned my lesson from what happened to them. If just one more circuit breaker had been tripped we wouldn't have just been hovering there for a while... we'd have fallen into the ocean. I'm just sorry I was so wreckless with you. With _both_ of you."

Neither said anything for a minute. Finally Quinn asked, "So you've been here all alone for almost a year?"

He nodded. "My godparents live back on Earth, and they wanted me to come back there, but I was over eighteen, so I declared myself nondependant and hired a team to continue my parents' research with me."

"How do you make a living?"

"Oh, you know, odds and ends. I trade antiques on the net and with Pete, my parents had a grant for the research, and they both had life insurance. So, I get by. Hopefully if I can map out the weather patterns completely then I can be the meteorologist in charge of arrivals and departures at the spaceport. And of course there'll be mining if the Siborean talks pan out."

He said it sarcastically, and she looked at him questioningly. "You don't think they will?"

"Nah. Nobody's holding out any hope."

"Well the president seemed pretty hopeful this morning."

He scoffed. "Yeah, if you're fool enough to believe him."

"Oh. I was, actually," she said quietly.

"Oh, Quinn, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I forgot you're not from around here. No, but, the government's been promising opportunities for offworld commerce for decades now, but they always sabotage it at the last moment. First they were going to let local merchants sell their goods to other planets, but then the environmental committee said we'd be giving away too many of the planet's raw resources and they got the bill held up in legislative hell until it died. Then there was the plan to let offworlders set up shops here, but the local businesses said they'd lose too big a share of the business from the spaceport and they shut that down. It's been an endless stream of promises that never come to fruition, and by this point very few people are holding out any hope for change anymore." He inclined his head forward, getting closer to her, and smiled. "Forgive me?"

She smiled back. "If you continue that foot massage," she said.

"Deal." He started rubbing again.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, then she said, "So you forgot I wasn't a local?"

"Yeah, actually, I did. I know it's kinda crazy, but I feel like I've known you forever."

"Very interesting," She said, rolling her eyes behind her closed eyelids. This guy was a smooth talker, certainly. Puck might even have been able to learn a thing or two from him.

"Yeah. In fact... well... I was thinking that tomorrow night, if you're not too busy or anything... well, maybe you'd like to do something. Or something. Dinner. Dinner would be good. I like... dinner."

Her breath caught in her throat. "Are you asking me on a date?" she asked, resting her hands around the bump absentmindedly.

His eyes followed. "I'm... sorry, I'm stupid," he said, shaking his head. "I should have known that you'd be involved with the... uh... father. I mean, of course you are. Stupid of me." He stood up, faced away from her to keep the red from showing in his cheeks. "I should... go. I'll just go."

"No, no, it's not that!" She said quickly. "Don't go!" She tried to stand up to stop him but had trouble leveraging herself up against the tree. But he had stopped, and without turning to face her, he held his hand out to her in order to help her up.

"I'm sorry. I was way out of line."

"You weren't. The baby's father and I..."

"You don't have to tell me this. You don't owe me anything."

She walked around him, facing him now, and put her hand on his chest. "You were honest with me, about your parents and all... let me do the same. The baby's father and I aren't together, and we can't be. Not ever. Maybe if things were different, we might have given it a shot, but trust me; that is absolutely not, nor will it ever be, a possibility. But as far as us... hey, I just met you."

"And this is crazy?" He held out a red, transparent piece of plastic to her. She looked at him like he was insane. "Oh, come on, you never heard that one?" She shook her head. "I thought you were into the oldies," he replied. He tried to smile, but it didn't really come through.

The truth was, if this had just been some other planet, she would have taken him up on it. But on the chain around her neck, she could feel the Doctor's fobwatch against her heart, ticking away the seconds of this planet. Ticking away the seconds of his life. And she couldn't bear it, couldn't bear to get attached just to know she was going to lose him just as she'd lost everyone else.

"Daniel I... I'm leaving in just a couple days. The Doctor and I have a... schedule to keep."

"You don't have to go."

"What?"

"You could... I dunno... you could stay here. We're always looking for more people on the colony, there are a lot of jobs that need filling if we're going to be viable as a larger civilization, and it's not uncommon for travelers to decide to stay. At least for a bit. You could try, anyway. If it doesn't work out then the Doctor could pick you up in a week, or a month or so. Just, take it for a test drive. A trial run."

"I can't. I just... can't."

"Why not? Isn't it even worth _considering_?"

And it was. Oh, was it ever. If it'd been a planet that wasn't doomed to start with then she could easily see herself settling down in a place just like it. Wasn't that what she was looking for anyway? A place to make a new start? "It, uh... wouldn't be fair to you," she said, grasping for any excuse. "I mean, you've got things to do, dreams of your own. You don't want to be shackled with a family so young."

"I'm not asking you to marry me," he said, chuckling nervously. "I'd just like to get to know you a bit better. Maybe it'd work out, maybe we'd just be friends but... I like you, Quinn, and I feel like I get you and you get me more than I feel connected to anyone else here since my family just... evaporated."

"But I can't afford to think like that, Daniel," she said. "I can't just take chances anymore. I've got the future to think about, carefully. I can't afford to be carefree and wreckless and just... just try things out to see how they go," she continued, even though in the back of her mind a little voice was asking, _'Isn't that exactly what you're doing, traveling with the Doctor?'_

"I understand that. I do. But I also know, better than most people, what it's like to feel like you're alone." She was looking away now, not meeting his gaze, blinking back tears. He took her hands in his. "Look, I don't know your whole story but I'm guessing you didn't exactly choose this - that this isn't where you saw your life going a few months ago. Are you really telling me you'd rather go it alone than have someone to stand by you, whether that person is just a friend or... or something more?"

Now it was her turn to face away from him, to keep him from seeing the tears welling up. "I can't, Daniel, I just... I can't. I can't. I can't!" And without letting him say another word, without even picking up her shoes, she ran for the TARDIS.


	13. Chapter 13

**Morning of the Third Day**

The Doctor forced himself to focus on the shuttle ride up to the Siborean cruiser. He hadn't seen Quinn for more than a moment this morning, and she hadn't been in any mood to talk to him, or anyone. She looked like she'd been up crying all night when he found her in the study, and when he tried to ask her what was wrong and tell her he was sorry, she shouted at him to leave her the hell alone.

Earth girls could be very unpredictable.

He hoped that she was alright, but he couldn't let himself be distracted. Not now anyway. Later on tonight he'd check in with her. Maybe they'd leave early. Whatever was bothering her, he couldn't imagine it would be helped by watching the planet get obliterated from orbit.

The Siborean ship was in low orbit, so it didn't take long at all to get there from the surface. As the tractor beam latched onto the shuttle to begin docking procedures, Melissa stood up in front of the group. "Alright, people," she said. "We're here to get down to work, so let's not dilly-dally about. We've got a job to do and a strict timetable. We've had two days of meeting and greeting, so we should be able to get right to work without a lot of fuss. Everyone have their assignments?"

The science team members all nodded; each of them knew the name of the Siborean they'd be partnered with, as well as the department they'd be sent to. Tony would be working with the automated load lifters, Steven would be examining toxicity levels with the plant and animal life samples he'd brought aboard, and Pam would work with Melissa to determine what effect the space fleet's constant stream of mining drones might have on the atmosphere and global climate change. The Doctor was to assist each of them as he was needed. At four hour intervals, they were supposed to meet and discuss their findings thus far, to ensure that any new discoveries were equally looked into and that everyone was on the same page.

"What about the ambassador?" the Doctor asked. "When do we make his acquaintance?"

"At the first team meeting, four hours after we start work," Melissa said. She had to suppress a sigh; it was unfortunate that the first meeting would most likely also be the last. She didn't wish any of the members of the science team any ill will… in fact she had become good friends with some of them over the past several weeks. But she pushed the thought to the back of her mind. The work she had been assigned to do was much more important than a few friendships, much more important than a few lives. She had to do this, to save the people she cared about.

The hardest part was trying to smuggle a weapon aboard. The security scans were intense but fortunately they were only looking for weapons, not _pieces_ of weapons. She had hidden the pistol in the equipment containers in seventeen separate pieces. The ammunition cell would be the hardest to smuggle aboard but she packaged it with four other samples of radioactive material and listed it on the equipment roster as a kit to determine radioactive baselines with the Geiger counter.

It took two hours of checking in with different teams and excusing herself from various inspections to surreptitiously assemble all of the parts again, slipping the completed weapon into a shoulder holster under her jacket. Slipping quietly into a lift, she made her way towards the command decks, where she anticipated she would be able to find him on the way to the first team gathering.

But she didn't realize that someone else was sneaking about within the ship, or that they would want to speak to her to see just what she was up to.

* * *

The Doctor figured he would need about an hour to establish with any degree of certainty what kind of weapon was used - or was due to be used - on the planet. He had four hours until the first meeting, leaving him some time to try to establish his whereabouts, should anyone ask, with everyone else.

Tony was working with one of the members of the Procurement Council when the Doctor found them in a large room just off the hangar. All the heavy equipment was stored here, with huge hover skiffs taking up two thirds of the room.

"The ore carriers are programmed to return to the skiff," the Siborean said. "The smaller carriers are capable of mining the ore in small batches, and because of their relatively small size they can excavate deeper shafts without issue. Then the skiff is the only thing that makes any trips into and out of the atmosphere, reducing disruptions."

"What kind of exhaust?" the Doctor asked. "Everything leaves something behind."

"It depends upon the way the skiff is used. When it needs to enter or leave atmosphere, it uses propulsion drives similar to the cruiser's, but to hover it uses no engine, just an inverse gravity fields. No thrust, no exhaust. At most, the skiffs will represent twelve new arrivals and departures per day, depending upon the rate at which the carriers can fill the skiff."

"Seems pretty clean," the Doctor said. "Almost too clean."

"How well do the skiffs handle atmospheric pressure?" Tony asked. "We tend to get storms right up out of the blue here."

"It shouldn't be a problem," the scientist said. "These were deigned to withstand pirate attacks, after all."

"Seems like you have this covered," the Doctor said. "I'm gonna go check on Pam and Melissa."

"Yeah, sure," Tony said, waving dismissively.

* * *

Only the Doctor didn't go straight there. Instead he went to see Steven, who was working alone in one of the auxiliary labs. The older man was hunched over a bubbling beaker, filled with steaming green liquid.

"Busy, are you?" the Doctor asked.

"Don't I look busy?"

"Well, you look... interested. Engaged. But busy? Not so much."

"I've added samples of Karburrium dust to water and dissolved them," he said. "Now I'm adding it a drop at a time to this indicator to see how long it takes to reach a pH level that could, potentially, riddle the silicate layer underground and enter the groundwater. When I get there it turns black," he said. "So I need to watch pretty carefully."

"Shouldn't you be halfway through your battery of experiments by now?" the Doctor asked.

"I might be," he replied, "if the guy they had working with me hadn't been called away. I can't finish everything else and stare at this all day."

"Mmhm," the Doctor said, nodding and considering. "I think I can help."

"You'll watch this?"

"Nah, I'll do you one better," he said, pulling equipment off the shelves and cupboards behind Steven and making a pile one one of the work benches. "So," he said, as he started putting pieces together and waving the sonic over them, "the big day finally arrives, hm?"

"I suppose so."

"Oh, come on," he said. "Aren't you at least a bit excited? Here you sit on the forefront of negotiations, helping decide the entire future of the planet... it's good, isn't it?"

"I'm starting to think the younger colonists are right," he replied. "I don't see the president letting anything go through with this plan. Something always seems to come up at the last moment, and by 'sheer coincidence'," he said, putting air quotes around the last two words with his fingers, "it's always just close enough to the elections that he can claim to be trying to develop an interplanetary strategy, but just far enough away that everyone's forgotten how badly it failed last time."

"You said a lot of people feel this way?"

"Enough do," he said.

"Enough to do something rash?"

"How d'you mean?"

"Nothing," the Doctor said. "Forget I spoke. Not important. So, here you go," he said, attaching a small electronic box to a laser diode at one end of Steven's table, running a clamp up to the drip of the Karburrium-laced water, and placing black device at the same level at the other end of the table. "There we go," he said. "It'll fire the laser every time before it releases another drop. If the liquid turns opaque, the signal on the photoreceptor will be weaker, and it'll stop. Pretty good for using the odds and sorts lying about if I do say so myself."

Steven's eyes widened. "That's... actually really good work," he said. "He looked up at the Doctor for the first time since the latter had entered the room. "Thank you, Dr. Smith," he said.

"My pleasure. Well, best go check in with Tony now. See you at the team meeting.

* * *

Pam was working by herself, clipboard in hand, when the Doctor found her. "Up to anything exciting?" he asked.

"Nothing," Pam said, sounding irritated. "Melissa was rifling through all the equipment in some kind of a fuss, and I guess she was looking for something because when I asked her what was going on she insisted I take a complete inventory. Now? We've only a couple days to finish everything up here and she wants an inventory run now?"

"Where is Dr. Allender anyway?"

"I don't know. She came in, made a mess of everything, found what she wanted and stuck it in her pocket, and left without saying another word apart from giving me ridiculous hours."

"Anything I can help with?"

"Not to be rude but... if you could minimize the distraction here I'm trying to sort everything back into the right container and find the items that are checked out already."

"Say no more," he said, raising his hands and grateful for the quickness of these encounters. "I'll just go check on Steven.

* * *

The Doctor's alibis were, if not firmly established, at least in place. That should give him at least an hour before anyone came looking, he reasoned, with each team assuming he was with the others until someone finally called around looking for him. He had another destination in mind.

A visual inspection of the ship during their docking approach revealed that the weapons were forward facing, located around the center band of the ship at the equator. By his estimation that would probably be six or seven decks down from the top, at the fore of the vessel. Of course it'd be well guarded, especially with guests aboard the ship. But he didn't intend to just walk straight in. Not even the psychic paper would allow that kind of carte blanche wandering around. But he had no desire to walk straight into the armory control center anyway. Looking at dials and readings and power levels wouldn't tell him what he wanted to know. He intended to get into the weapon firing chamber itself, in order to look at the warheads the ship was capable of firing.

The entrance to the maintenance shafts was alarmed, and it took a little doing to make sure that the sensor wasn't tripped. Once he was inside, though, it was relatively smooth sailing. A terminal located within the wall allowed him to pull up a schematic, and it was an uneventful twenty minute crawl in order to get where he needed to be.

He wondered exactly what had happened to Melissa, though. Nobody had heard from her, except for a very brief conversation with Pam, since they'd arrived. Something seemed... off about the situation, and though he couldn't put his finger on it, it was worrisome to him. Still, he carried on; better to finish this first, leaving him to worry about other things later.

Stopping outside the automatic warhead loading mechanism, he steeled himself for the harsh certainty that was to come. Either these people were the killers or they weren't. The answer would be revealed as soon as he lifted the panel away.

He lifted up on the handholds, pulled back the section of bulkhead, and looked at them all lined up in a row, a hundred capsules each the length of his arm and about twice as big around, and each capable of destruction on a massive scale. It was exactly the same configuration. That tore it; there wasn't any question anymore. The Siboreans had indeed designed the weapon that would wipe out the colony tomorrow morning. The Doctor closed the bulkhead and crawled back out to the access point, his blood boiling. The worst part was, there wasn't a thing he could do about it. Not one.

The only question was why. Presumably at some point the science team would find something, some caveat that would mean the plan couldn't continue. And at that point the Siboreans would take what they wanted by force. He'd probably find out what it was shortly, at the first team meeting. He had to start thinking of a way to get off this ship before things went south.

Except when he got to the conference room, it appeared that thing had already gone south. He could hear raised voices up ahead, calling out, "Search the whole ship! Find doctors Allendar and Smith!"

He ducked into an alcove in the corridor, sneaking back around the corner and into a smaller room as the sound of booted feet echoed down the corridor. He'd only be incommunicado for about an hour. What was happening?

The room he was in bordered the conference room, and he crept up to the wall and pulled the stethoscope from his pocket. Placing it against the wall he heard them clearly: Tony threatening to rearrange a guard's face, Steven was muttering incoherently, and Pam pleaded with everyone to just calm down. Nobody seemed to be listening to her.

"Where is Dr. Allendar? Where is Dr. Smith?" A Siborean with a gun was saying.

"We don't know," Pam said. "He told me he was going to see Steven."

"He told me he was going to see Tony," Steven said.

"And he told me he was going to check on Pam and Melissa," Tony said.

"Obviously someone lied," Steven said.

"Multiple times, roo," Tony said.

The Doctor heard the gun cock. "Where are they? Provide their whereabouts!"

"We don't know," Pam said. "Why are we even here?"

"You have been gathered as enemies of the state!" the Siborean replied, all loudness and hot tempers. "You will be dealt with accordingly."

"What?"

"The only ones of your party we cannot find are missing, and our ambassador was just shot and killed with a radioactive blaster bolt. Clearly you came here to commit sabotage and destroy our tentative peace. Consider it broken."

The other Siberean in the room spoke up. "They may speak the truth, councilor," he said, but the first made a disgruntled sound. "They are a council of five," he said. "They have enough to all be responsible for the decisions of the council."

The Doctor thought he heard the other Siborean tell the first, "No, this is not the way!" but apparently it had no effect. The sound of gunfire that rang out, the screaming and then silence that followed, was unmistakable.

So. Someone had killed the ambassador. It wasn't the science team; they were all accounted for. There was himself and Melissa. He knew he hadn't killed him, so it was a tossup between Melissa or an unknown third party. He really, really, really hoped for the latter.

The Siboreans marched out into the corridor, and he could hear them speak again. "It wasn't any of those three," the more subdued Siborean said.

"Prepare to leave orbit," said the one who'd shot the science team. "You do not have to like my actions. This is a security matter. It is the job of the security council now. We will report what happened here to the interplanetary dispute council. They will decide what is to happen to the planet. But do not leave until we have found the one who assassinated the ambassador."

He had to find a place to hide, regroup, figure things out, and see if Melissa was involved in some way. And fortunately he had an idea of a place that would work.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: **Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I wasn't really happy with either the last chapter or this one, but no amount of tweaking seemd to make it any better. The 'political intrigue' thing can be interesting but I'm starting to realize it's not my strong point. Ah well. Que sera sera. Hang on until the next chapter, I suppose, which gets back to the action and science and stuff... which I CAN do :).

* * *

**Afternoon of the Third Day**

Melissa Allender crept through the ship, with the weapon still in her hand. So far she'd avoided all the patrols, and she was feeling pretty proud of herself. Siboreans were stupid, easily maniupulated, and though they were brutish their brawn was much more prevalent than their brains. Of course, all that played right into her hands. She was nearing the escape pods, and all she had to do was get aboard one and set coordinates for the outskirts of the system. The getaway ship would pick her up and off they'd go. Then it would just be a couple years of waiting and they'd be in position to take this sector for all it was worth. She considered just using the backup plan, but if she could avoid being tracked by anyone on the planet, that would be better for everyone she was associated with.

She was taking a circuitous route to get through the ship without crossing any patrols, but she congratulated herself on her cunning. She was being so quiet that they'd barely seen her at all; she hadn't had even a close run in. No sooner would a patrol appear in the corridor up ahead but she'd slip through the doors, unseen, like a wraith, with no suspicion she'd ever been there. She opened a door and let it slip shut behind her before moving to the next one at the other side of the room. Only the second door wouldn't open. She tried it again, still to no avail.

Alright, dead end. She'd just retrace her steps back through the last corridor, back to the junction, hang a left, go down one deck and through that way, then back up to the lifepods on this deck and out. Only the first door was locked, too. There were two exits to this room and both were locked. But how did they know she was there? Were they tracking her somehow? She supposed it could have been that they were trying to trap her here, but this didn't seem like their style. This was too quiet and meticulous. If the Siboreans wanted her dead (which they did) and they knew where she was, then she wouldn't have had time to think it through like this. She'd just be dead. They'd swarm the room and take her, one way or the other.

"It took a long time to get you here," a voice said, compressed and tinny over a speaker.

"Who's there?"

"Just me," the Doctor said, turning on the lights in his side of the chamber. "Routing the rest of the patrols around to funnel you in this direction wasn't easy, but I wanted us to be able to talk uninterrupted." She raised the gun and fired at his head, but the blast wave dissipated across the glass partition between them. "Oh, come on, Melissa. A scientist like you? You ought to know there'd be exoglass between the observation chamber and containment."

She shrugged. "It seemed likely but experimentation is the best way to test a hypothesis. How did you find me? I'm biodamped."

"When I got back to the lab the Siboreans were already patrolling. I heard them say someone had assassinated the ambassador, and I knew it had to be one of the science team from the planet. So I made my way back down here, accessed the security system, and forced you this way."

"But how did you find me on the sensors? I should be masked."

"You are. Heartbeat, body heat, brainwaves... all hidden from view. But that," he said, glancing down at her weapon, "primitive laser accelerator rifle... well, it gives off radiation like nobody's business. It's like a beacon. In fact if you like that arm you might consider putting that down."

"Do you know, I think I'll risk it?"

"Suit yourself. The Siboreans aren't that clever to think to reconfigure their sensors to look for it. Luckily I am."

"So what's the plan? Hand me over to the Siboreans?"

"I'd considered it."

"And?"

"They'd kill you. Execute you on the spot for what you did."

"And the rest of the science team, don't forget," she said. "Tony, Steven, Pam, still locked away in the lab... I wonder what will happen to them?"

"They're already dead," he said simply, looking at her sadly with contempt in his eyes... or was it pity? She couldn't tell.

If it bothered Melissa in the slightest that three people who had trusted her implicitly were dead, she didn't show it. "It's better that way, then. No witnesses."

"Three people are dead. Three innocent people are never going home to their families because of what you did. And there are always witnesses, Melissa. Someone's always watching."

"That may well be, but I won't change my mind either way."

"But if I hand you over, then you won't learn a thing. Execution, revenge, that's not the way. And I know you think this was worth it. You're wrong. It's not."

"Heh," she chuckled, making a face somewhere between a grin and a grimace. "You really have no idea, do you?"

"Why you betrayed your planet? Why you'd condemn them to extinction just to stop the mining operation? No, I haven't a clue."

"I did this to save my planet!"

"Well it won't work!" the Doctor shouted at her. "Because in the early afternoon tomorrow, the Siborean battle fleet will arrive. They'll blockade the planet, making sure no shuttles escape, and then they'll drop an explosive charge from orbit that will destroy every living thing on this world. The entire race will be wiped out in the blink of an eye. That's what you've accomplished today!"

"Oh, who cares about this pathetic little colony? 2000 people? Who's even going to miss them?"

"You don't even care, do you? You're more lost than I thought."

"Oh, wake up and smell the coffee. This isn't my planet."

"What?"

"My planet gets destroyed, thirty years from now, by the Siborean War Council when a border skirmish between their patrols and our cargo ships gets out of hand, spawning an interplanetary incident that becomes a full on war."

The full dawning of realization showed on his face; he didn't bother to hide it. "You're a time traveler too."

"Give the man a prize."

"So you're, what, out to make someone else feel your pain?"

"Nothing so impractical as that. I knew there wasn't a history of a civilization here. Nobody knew why. This place is just a blip on the timespace continuum. But I could use it to my advantage. Our calculations show that when word gets out about the Siboreans massacring this poor, innocent little colony, it'll spark an inquiry back in the core worlds. The masses will demand justice, which for a throng of angry people basically equates to bucketfuls of blood, and the united Earth council will, eventually, all but wipe the race from existence."

"You're going to ignite a war to change your future. Do you have any idea how hard it is to calculate a potential future based on a single vector? You're not allowing for all the variables! There's no way to know if this is going to work! Which it isn't, by the way. I've seen the future, and nobody knows a thing about this place. Oh, sure, the star chart says there used to be a spaceport here, but that's all. Nobody knew who these people were, nobody knew anything had happened to them, and nobody, not one single soul, knows why."

"But at least we will have tried!"

"And at what cost? What expense? How many colonists? How many Earth Alliance soldiers? How many Siboreans? Do you have any idea what you've done on nothing more than a whim?"

"We'll know soon enough. Now I really should be going before this ship heads back to assemble the fleet. I was planning an escape pod so I couldn't be tracked back to my colleagues so easily but since you've made that impossible..." she held up a transmat beacon, "I suppose I'll just have to take a shortcut."

"No no no!" he said, putting both has hands out. "No, don't do that! I'm warning you!"

"Or what? You'll kill me? You'll never catch me. In a second I'll be in the lounge of the getaway vessel, and you'll be left here holding the bag. I wouldn't be surprised if they pin the whole thing you anyway."

"Melissa, listen to me. That's a simple emergency transmat, and it only goes to one set of prearranged coordinates. It's not safe. I'm telling you, don't!" he said, but she pressed the button anyway.

She had a moment, just a quick moment as the air was pulled from her lungs to register how cold it was, and as she lost consciousness, which mercifully enough happened quickly, the last thing she saw around her was the vastness of cold, open space.

The Doctor didn't have much time to feel badly about her untimely demise, however, because a few seconds later there was a flash, and he was no longer aboard the Siborean ship.

* * *

The Doctor fell to the floor, his knees sinking into red plush carpet. "I see my message got through," he said. "President Wyler, I presume?"

The man behind the desk stood looking out the window, and he didn't turn to face the Doctor when he spoke. "We apprehended the ship behind one of the moons, hiding in low power mode. Their sensors were off. They never saw us coming. It was just where you said it'd be. Ms. Allender?"

"She transmatted to the ship."

"She transmatted to the coordinates where the ship was," the president corrected. "We impounded it."

"I suspected as much."

"You tried to warn her."

"Yeah." She'd been a pretty terrible war criminal, but there was still sadness in his voice at her terrible end. "So you were listening in?"

"The transmat beacons in the ID badges transmit audio on a carrier wave along with the location data. You can't be too careful of the people you keep close to you, after all."

The Doctor stood up. "You've listened to everything that happened up there. You could have stopped this. You could have stopped her. You could have brought back the rest of the science team before they were killed."

"And risk bringing the traitor right into the presidential office? I think not. A president of a border world doesn't survive this long by being overly trusting."

"No, I suppose not." His voice was hard, and it didn't sound like he had any sympathy for the man whatsoever.

"So. Ms Allender was plotting from the beginning to have our colony destroyed as a feint. I suppose under better circumstances I might be happy to learn that we are so important in the grand scheme of things. But as it would mean the death of everyone on the colony, I am in fact less than giddy," he said with a sneer. He finally turned to face the Doctor. "So if you really have seen the future, how can you help?"

"I haven't, I..."

"I heard you and her speak, Doctor, candidly and unaware you were being observed. I heard what you said as clearly as if I were in the room with you. So don't insult my intelligence. I know the truth and now I am asking. How can you help?"

There was resigned sadness in the Doctor's eyes. "I can't," he said simply.

"Can't or won't?"

"Either. The destruction of your colony isn't a fixed point in time, but to change the documented history of countless worlds... the ripple effect would be unfathomable."

"But you said history doesn't record any of us being here," he replied. "What records would change?"

"The lack of an event is still history. Surveyors have charted this system time and again, each time recording nothing at this site."

The president's icy veneer melted slightly, and the Doctor could see him for who he really was; a leader frightened for the welfare of his people. "Please, Doctor. Think. There must be something."

The Doctor looked at the floor. He didn't have to think about it, because there was one other option. Something he'd done once before and never ever wanted to do again. The final option, almost unthinkable, trading one hell for another. "There's one way," he said quietly. "I'd never consider it if the timeline wasn't already being tampered with. I swore I'd never... never again..." he shook his head to clear it. "There's a way, but there's a cost. And you have to be sure it's worth it."

"It is. Whatever we must do to save my people."

"No. You can't decide for them. Each person will decide for themselves, or no deal."

President Wyler swallowed hard. "What is this plan?"


	15. Chapter 15

**Evening of the Third Day**

The Doctor sat across from Quinn at their nightly dinner, which had become an impromptu tradition since they'd arrived. He was in the middle of the story about escaping the Siborean vessel. "So the President himself sought you out?"

"He was listening in when I confronted Dr. Allender. He believes me. And he wants my help."

"Oh," she said. "That's a shame."

"What is?"

"That you had to tell him no, you couldn't help."

"I didn't tell him that."

Her heart started to beat faster with hope. "But you said we couldn't save them," she threw out cautiously.

"I said history doesn't show a civilization here."

"What's the difference?"

"Dr. Allender was betting on the massacre sparking an intergalactic incident. The future we saw when we landed here... I think that's the altered timeline. If we want to stop a massive war in this sector, then we have to make sure that there's no history associated with this place... no memories. Just like history intended."

"So when it was just a question of saving people from a massacre, it was screwing up the timeline, but now that it's about stopping someone _else_ from changing time it's okay for us to intervene?"

"You'll find often enough, Quinn, that the motivation behind something is just as important as the thing you're doing to begin with."

She nodded slowly. "So what do we do? Try to force the Siboreans to listen to reason? From what I've heard of them they're not likely to do that once they're on the warpath."

"There's another option." His eyes darted around the room and couldn't seem to land on her face. "We can time lock the planet."

"What?"

"It's what happened to... It's been done before," he said. "Time lock the planet, and you create a static field of time around it. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out - no light, no heat, no radio waves, nothing. To an outside observer, nothing's there, to the people inside life goes on as normal, but really centuries of time inside the bubble pass in a blink of an eye outside."

"And you can do this? The TARDIS can do it?"

He had his jaw tightly clenched. "It can."

"How can you be sure it'll work? I mean, it sounds..."

"I had to do it once before," was his curt reply.

She put her hands to her head trying to make sense of all this. "So, anyone on the planet..."

"Lives a normal life, yeah."

She nodded, thought a minute, then said, "I want to stay."

If it was tense and silent before, the quiet was deafening now. "What?"

"I want to stay. I'm going to stay. Here, with Daniel. He asked me and... I'm going to."

"He asked you to stay here with him? Forever?"

"What did he know of 'forever' being involved? No, he asked me if I'd have dinner with him."

"And?"

"And... if I wanted to stick around here and see about finding a job, becoming a part of the civilization here."

"Did you want to?"

"I was tempted, alright?!" she said testily. "You don't have to interrogate me. It sounded interesting but I knew it would be suicide, so I said no. But if it's not... then I guess..." she trailed off.

"Quinn, are you sure?"

She didn't answer right away, but after a moment she seemed to find her resolve. "Yes. More than I've ever been sure of anything."

"You had better be. Because once the planet is time locked, there won't be any way out. No turning back, no second chances."

"I know."

"Quinn, I..."

"Stop," she said. "You said you'd help me, said you'd find me a place where I could settle down and put down roots, to take care of myself and my baby."

"I know, I did, and if this is what you really want then I won't stand in your way. But, Quinn, you've just met him. I just... I'd hate for you to do this because you think you'll never do any better, never find someone who cares."

"It's not just about Daniel." The Doctor fixed her with a penetrating look. "Not '_just_', I said. It's true, I was surprised to find someone who was interested, even with all my baggage. Plus the fact that he wasn't freaked out about the baby," she said. "But it's not just that. I think he really does care about me, too. The way Finn used to. Puck just cared about her... sometimes he treated me like the box his little girl came in. It's not like that with him. But that's not why I'm considering it. Maybe Daniel and I would work out... maybe not. But I don't know how long I can keep doing this."

"Doing what?"

"This!" she said, motioning to the dining room of the TARDIS in a sweeping gesture. "The running around and the saving people and the adventure..."

"Ah. Sure." He said, now looking down and engaged in a staring contest with the salt shaker and managing to look completely rejected and dismayed.

She sighed. "Look, the past couple weeks with you have been... well, weird. But they've also been special. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come around. I needed you... someone just like you to remind me that I still had things to live for and that someone could still think I was important. But I can't just indulge in this forever, I can't make this my long-term plan, and you _know_ that. I have someone else to think about, and time's running out. Being with you has been... amazing, and I wouldn't trade our time together for anything in the world but... you can't be my priority. And I'm starting to realize that _I_ can't be my priority either. Tell me you understand. Please?"

He nodded slowly. "At least think about it until morning," he said. "Weigh all the options, will you?"

She nodded. "I will." Neither spoke for a few moments, then a thought occurred to her. "What about the rest of the planet? The president can't just decide for everyone, can he?"

"The general evacuation alert goes out tomorrow, at six in the morning. People that want to stay, can stay. Shuttles will bring the rest here, and I'll relocate them to the colonial planning office. They can move on someplace else from there."

"I'm sure Daniel will want to stay," she said.

He cocked his head to the side as if he were considering something, then said, "Did you ask him that?"

"He doesn't even know there's a reason to consider it."

"You could...I mean, if you wanted... he could come with us."

She was quite honestly stunned. "You... you'd let him?"

"If you want to stay - really want to - then I won't say another word about it. But at least you'd get the chance to know him a bit better before you force yourself into forever with him."

"I... I don't know what to say."

"Say yes," he said. "Please. I know you want to find a place but... not like this." She chuckled at him. "What?" His brow creased in confusion which only made her laugh harder. "What, what is it? What?"

"It's just... here you are, a centuries old alien who saves planets for a living, and you're more protective of me than my own daddy."

He smiled. "I try."

She was flip-flopping. She knew that. She could barely keep it straight in her own head. She wanted to see what would come of a relationship with this guy who she really did like, but she didn't want to throw herself into a commitment too early. But she also didn't want to lose him. And she wanted to find someplace to settle down and put down roots, but just as intensely she wanted to stay here, in the TARDIS. There were so many options and the problem was, none of the prospects before her now looked especially bad. "I just don't know..."

"...what the future holds. I know. And we'll get you some security, some peace of mind. You have a lot to think about and we'll make it our top priority, numero uno, I promise. Just... don't make the decision this way, in a rush, under duress. Maybe it'd turn out great and you wouldn't regret it." He looked up at her, making eye contact for the first time since the whole subject came up. "But maybe you would."

There it was. The possibility she didn't want to think about. The indecision was hard to bear but the possibility of making a decision, making it permanent, and finding out a few weeks or months or even years later that it was wrong... that was worse.

"What about Daniel?" She asked quietly.

"Ask him to come with us," the Doctor said. "If he wants to, great. You can think about all the option, give it time, make a choice you can live with. And if not..."

"... then I stay here, with him," she said. He started to say something else but she cut him off. "Don't. I'm wavering enough as it is. I have to start making some concrete decisions. We'll all hope he wants to come, but if not... decision's made. I stay here."

He nodded. "Okay."

Her eyes went wide. "Oh God! I have to find him and tell him. I kind of gave him the brush off earlier. How am I going to find him?" She pulled out the piece of plastic. "He gave me a number, well, a card, but..."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Oh, go on, then. Console room, just above the helmic regulator, there's a keypad. It'll patch you into the local telecom network. Slide the card he gave you across the reader."

"Great!" She got as far as the door before she turned back to face him. "Doctor..."

"Hm?"

"Thank you." She returned to him, and gave him a hug around his shoulders, pinning his arms to his sides. "Now I've got to go call him!" And she was gone.

* * *

When he came around the corner in the plaza, he found her leaning on a big blue box, smiling at him. "Hi," she said, somewhat shyly.

"Hey."

"I wasn't sure you'd come, after last night." She noticed the small satchel he was carrying. "Nice handbag."

"Oh, yeah, here." He opened it and handed her the shoes from the previous night.

"Thanks," she said, taking them.

"Yeah, well, you left kind of... abruptly."

"I know." There was a bench nearby. "Can we sit?"

"Sure." He was there, he was listening, but his mood was still subdued. She'd really taken the wind out of his sails last night.

"Whew boy," she said. "There's so much to tell you. It's hard to know where to start."

"The beginning's always good."

"Yeah, I just don't know if I can find it." There was so much to tell him. Her past, McKinley, time travel, the Doctor... and what would happen to his planet to tomorrow.

"Quinn, you're confusing me."

"I'm confusing myself. Let's just start with the easiest part."

"Which is?"

"Me. Us."

The mood turned more serious. He cleared his throat. "Uh, okay. Us."

"I'm not promising anything, but I'm willing to try and see how it goes."

"Okay. That's good. Right? It is good, right?"

She smiled. "It's good. I just have some things to sort out, obviously. And there are some things you should know about me."

"I think I know everything I need to. You're captivating, you care about the past as much as I do. And you're sweet."

"So are you. But I'm not. Not always." He looked like he was about to protest, so she held a finger to his lips. "Just let me finish. Where I came from, before this, I was in charge. I was on top of the social ladder and I wasn't very kind to the people below me. But then this happened," she said, looking down at herself. "I cheated on my boyfriend with his best friend, and I couldn't bear to lose him, so I told him the baby was his." His face hadn't changed this whole time, and she hoped she wasn't losing him. "When my parents found out they disowned me."

"What?!" At least his countenance had finally changed. "I haven't heard of anyone doing that since the dark ages. I mean you're a bit young but..."

"Teen pregnancy isn't the sort of thing that fit into the image my family wanted to project."

"So I asked you before, and just tell me honestly... do you have anything to sort out with the father?"

"No."

"But... well, forgive me if I'm taking too many liberties but... Quinn, how can that be?"

"Well, that actually relates to the next piece," she said. "I don't care about the past as much as you think I do."

"Oh, c'mon, nobody knows about those antiques anymore, unless they really care."

"That's not exactly true. I'm not just interested in the early 2000s. I'm from the early 2000s."

He smiled, blinked a little more rapidly than was probably necessary, and squeaked out, "What?"

"It's true. The Doctor is a time traveler."

"There weren't time travelers in the early 2000s. There's barely a few chrononauts now... just all that time agency business."

"Not from Earth maybe. But the Doctor isn't."

"Isn't what?"

"From Earth. Or from the early 2000s."

"But you are?"

"I'm a passenger on this trip."

He looked her over carefully as if gauging her honesty, then said, "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. Think about it. How else would I know so much about music from back then? How is it that I had perfectly preserved antique money just stuffed in my pocket?"

"No, but... that can't be."

"You know what? Come with me." She took his hand and hauled him to his feet, taking him towards the TARDIS.

"What's that supposed to be?"

"What, an antique fan like you doesn't know what a Police Box is?" she joked. "Except it's a diguise. It's the Doctor's ship. He calls it the TARDIS."

"Quinn, just stop this," he said. "If you're not interested, you don't have to make like you're crazy. Just say it. 'I'm not interested, Daniel.' That's all. I've been rejected before. I can take it."

"Daniel, I'm not kidding. This is our - his - ship."

"Don't patronize me. I've seen dozens of ships come through the spaceport, and nothing that ever looked like that. It's too small and rickety to even be spaceworthy." She opened the door and stepped inside. He followed, continuing to rant. "Where are the engines? What's the means of propulsion? The door isn't even airtight. And there's... and there's... and there's... no... way..."

He finally stopped, realized where he was. Quinn smirked. "Believe me now?"

"But... it's...uh, it's..."

"Bigger," she started for him.

"Bigger, yeah, bigger, thank you. That's the word. Bigger on the inside."

"I know."

He looked at her like she was sharing in his discovery. "This is a space ship," he said.

"No kidding?" She said, her smile widening all the time.

"And a time ship," the Doctor said, coming into the console room. "A Type 40 Gallifreyan time capsule."

Daniel gaped at him. "She meant it. You're from... you're really from..."

"Oh, the past, the future, the present... I get around."

Daniel turned to Quinn. "And you go with him?"

"I had to. I didn't have a choice."

"I'm sorry, what was that now?"

The Doctor stepped forward. "There was a paradox. A rent in the time-space continuum. We saved a half dozen people from being ripped from the timestream. But the resolution of the paradox was Quinn. There's two of her now."

"Two of her?"

"My friends looped back on their own time stream, and they're re-living a few months of their lives."

"Why aren't you?"

"To avoid changing the timeline, they had to blend in, be as inconspicuous as possible," the Doctor said. "But that wasn't really an option for Quinn."

He looked puzzled, so she jumped in. "Going from a cheerleader's physique to four months pregnant overnight would probably have made someone notice."

He smiled - no, grinned was more the word. A big toothy grin. "I'm dating a cheerleader?"

"Focus, Daniel."

"No, I'm not sure I want to do that. If I focus then I might start to notice that this is getting too weird," he said, sitting down. Quinn sat next to him, rubbing his back. "So you're like, what, your own twin sister?"

"She doesn't even know I exist. She has the life I skipped out on when I went with the Doctor. In fact, that was 2009... she's probably long dead by now."

He stared at her. "How can you be so blasé about your own death?"

"Because it's not my death. For better or for worse, this is my life now. That life, that world, is closed to me."

"One of the byproducts of the paradox is that she can't go back," the Doctor said. "Not ever. The risk would be too great. If she were ever to encounter her other self the results would be catastrophic."

"Oh, Quinn..."

"It's okay," she said. "It's actually... really okay." She smiled at the Doctor and he returned the look.

Daniel leaned back on the chair, staring up at the domed roof, then said, "So why are you telling me all this?" Quinn stiffened, the Doctor held his breath a little too long to just be taking a deep breath, and nobody said anything.

"We, uh... well, we want you to come with us," Quinn said.

"Yes! Yes, we do," the Doctor chimed in, over enthusiastically. "We'd be honored."

"Yeah, okay, I get it. But... why? There's something you aren't telling me."

Quinn looked up at the Doctor, pleading in her eyes. "Please don't make me tell him," she said.

He nodded and crouched down, closer to Daniel's eye level. "What do you know about the Siborean talks from this afternoon?"

"Not much. The ship left this morning and the news commentators said there was a snag in the negotiations. We figure the science team did something to insult them - probably at the President's command - and that's the last we'll hear about it."

"The president's not as disinterested in the colonists' safety as you might think," the Doctor told him. "Misguided with a warped sense of priorities, sure, but he's willing to take charge and make a decision when it matters."

"What are you talking about? What's happened?"

"Daniel..." Quinn started, trying to calm him down, but he was having none of it.

"No, stop it! You've both been talking in circles, beating around the bush trying to spare me. I get it. You've got some bad news. Just say it."

"You're right. I'm sorry. We've been trying to tell a story jumbled up in time as if it were linear, but the most pressing concern is here and now."

"Yes? And?"

"And... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Because at 6:00 tomorrow morning, the general evacuation order will be given. Anyone who wants to leave the planet will have nine hours to do so. And then in the afternoon, a static field of time will be encased around the planet, sealing it in its own time stream, locked away from the rest of the universe, forever."

Daniel's mouth had dropped open. "You... you're going to do that to us?"

"I am."

"But... why? What would it benefit you to sentence us to exile like that?"

"The Doctor isn't doing this to be cruel, Daniel," Quinn said. "He's doing it to save you."

"This afternoon, an assassin who had posed as head of the science team killed the ambassador. That's where the Siborean ship went, to summon the armada. And if we don't do it, then at 3:00 tomorrow afternoon, a Siborean fleet will blockade the planet. They'll shoot down any ships that try to leave, and then they'll drop a warhead from orbit that will wipe out all life on the planet."

"But how can you know that? Maybe we can apologize, or reach a diplomatic solution or..." He trailed off, looking at each of them in turn, taking in their hopeless expressions. "Time travelers," he said, realization dawning. "You've seen this, Quinn?" She didn't answer, but her refusal to meet his gaze answered the question well enough. "I... excuse me, I've got to... just, excuse me," he said, and before Quinn could react he had stood and run for the doors.

"Why do our evenings always end like this," she muttered, and went after him as fast as she could. "Daniel! Daniel, wait!"

The Doctor followed as far as the doorframe. "Just remember! 6:00! Whatever you decide is fine, but decide by 6:00!"

"I know!" she called back over her shoulder.

She disappeared around a corner, hot on Daniel's trail, and the Doctor hoped he hadn't seen the last of her.


	16. Chapter 16

He was sitting in a darkened room when she found him, watching a video on a monitor. It was the only light in the room, and it illuminated the corner with a blue glow while the rest of the room was mainly in shadow.

"Hi, I'm Douglas Parker," the man on the screen was saying. "Over the next twenty minutes, I'd like to show you the experiments my wife and I have designed, tell you a bit about what we hope to gain from our research, and finally provide a rough estimate of the costs associated with such a project. Let's get started."

"You can come all the way in, you know," Daniel said, pausing the video. "How did you know I'd be here?"

"I tried to think where I would go if I knew something was going to happen. Someplace with memories of family seemed appropriate."

"In half a day, that'll be all they are. Just memories." He turned his chair around. "I just wanted to finish their work. Is that too much to ask? I just... I don't know if I really believe they're still watching over me, but if they are I wanted them to be proud. That's all I wanted. Why can't I have that?"

"If there's anything the last four months have taught me, it's that sometimes things just happen and there's no reason behind it. Looking for a reason will just get you depressed. Sometimes you just have to deal with reality as best you can."

He sighed. "When I asked if you wanted to stay here, you already knew what the Doctor was planning, didn't you?"

"No. Earlier, he'd told me there was nothing we could do, that the planet would be attacked and nobody would live."

"And now?"

"Now that things are more complicated, it opens up some options."

"So, we either stay here on the planet..."

"Or we go with the Doctor. Either way, I'm not leaving you."

"Quinn, are you sure?"

"You're not getting cold feet on me, are you?"

"No, no. Look, I know I haven't known you long, but I feel something for you I've never felt before. It's more than attraction. I feel like there's a part of me that's never had a voice until you came along."

"I know what you mean."

"Good. But when we were talking about you staying on the planet, well, it wasn't exactly forever. Even if I could finish my parents' work, there wouldn't be any need for it anymore, not if there's no traffic to the spaceport. My prospects on the colony aren't very good, and I know you have someone else to think about."

Darned of this baby didn't complicate every aspect of her life. She sighed, wringing her hands, as a thought occurred to her. "What were you going to show me?"

"What?"

"Yesterday, before the hurricane. You said you wanted to show me what this planet would be famous for."

"Yeah, well, it won't now. What does it matter."

She took his hands in hers. "Tell me?"

He smiled wistfully. "Up in the north, there's an ice field. It's completely flat… like, abnormally flat. No hills, no valleys, no mounds or depressions. As far as the eye can see in any direction, it's a windswept level surface that looks artificial, manmade. And then right in the middle there's this formation of ice spires, just shooting up into the sky. They're like a hundred needles twenty feet up in the air. And when the sun shines on them in the middle of the day, the ice starts to squeal and crackle. It's like they're singing. Tour busses fly up there every day." His smile faded. "Now nobody will ever care about it."

Her smile was genuine and warm. "It's amazing to see stuff like that, isn't it? The Doctor's taken me to all kinds of places like that." She sighed. "I know what it's like to lose your home, and I wouldn't ask you to do it. But..."

"But you want to stay with the Doctor, in the TARDIS," he said.

"That... would be my preference, yes."

"Okay. Let's do it."

"What, just like that?"

"That box is crazy weird," he said. "But I think I can handle it."

"If it makes you feel any better, you handled it better than I did."

"Oh yeah? What'd you do?"

"Threw up on the floor."

"Nice. Well that killed it."

"What?"

"Well, I was going to say something."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, before you started taking about vomit."

"What was it?"

"Well, I was going to say that I'd really like to kiss you now," he said.

"Oh, darn," she said. "Because I was just thinking how much I'd like it if you would."

He leaned in slowly, cupping her chin with two fingers, and pressed his lips to hers. He was gentle and slow, not pushing the envelope in the slightest, and she was having none of it. He started to pull back, and she reached both arms around the back of his neck and pulled him into a much longer, much deeper, and much more aggressive kiss.

When they finally broke away from each other, he was flustered to say the least. "Passionate. That's a good word for you," he said.

"I try. Come on, let's tell the Doctor he's getting another guest."

* * *

"I'm going to come with you," Daniel said, holding Quinn's hand and looking at the Doctor across the console.

He smiled warmly. "Welcome aboard, Daniel. Just a bit of business to finish up here tomorrow and then off we go. Where do you want to go first?"

"How about the sixties?" Quinn said. "I can prove to you once and for all that it's Peter, Paul, and Mary."

"What, buy one of the albums?"

"No... how about going to see them? The Doctor does great concerts. He always gets us into the first row."

"I'm telling you, it's Marjorie."

"Ten credits?"

"You're on."

The Doctor looked at them, one eyebrow raised, and he might have said something, but thought better of it. "Right. Anyway, the evacuation will be done by 3:00 tomorrow afternoon. By 3:15 the time lock will be in place, and then we can be off."

"What about the people who want to leave?" Quinn asked.

"Most people that want to get away will go on ships from the spaceport. But those that can't will need a lift," Daniel said.

"The Doctor said he would take them, didn't you, Doctor?"

He nodded. "If they can get transport off the planet, that's fine. The President has ordered a series of shuttles to evacuate the rest to the TARDIS, and I'll drop them off at the relocation center. Fortunately it's a relatively small colony, so it shouldn't take that long to get everyone out."

"Why don't you just let people board here?" Quinn asked. "Why bother with the shuttles at all?"

"I've got to be in orbit to start the time lock, and it's not a flip-of-a-switch sort of solution. Well, not this time, anyway."

"Was it before?"

He wasn't looking at her when he responded. "The last time I did this, I had all the technology of the Time Lords at my fingertips," he said. "I had just the right Moment... The Eye of Harmony was already powering the TARDIS, and it was just a matter of generating the field. This time I'm going to have to build up enough power on my own, and it's going to take some time."

"I've been thinking, Doctor... about coming with you," Daniel said.

Quinn turned to him. "Please tell me you're not changing your mind."

"No, I'm not. But there is one thing first."

"What's that?" the Doctor asked.

"I have the ship I use for flying though storm systems... the _Stormchaser II_. I want to help with the evacuation."

"Daniel..." Quinn started, but he cut her off.

"With all the recording equipment removed I can fit at least ten passengers, maybe twelve. And if I do it, then at least my parents' research will still be able to help someone."

"No changing your mind, I take it?" The Doctor asked.

"Not really, no."

"Then I shan't bother to try."

"Thank you, Doctor. Oh, that reminds me…" he reached into his pocket and pulled out a red transparent disk, handing it to the Doctor. "My parents' research, like you asked."

He took the disk and slipped it in his own pocket. "I'll take a look. Now, off you go. You better pack if you have anything you want to bring along."

"There are a few odds and ends, yeah."

"I'll go too... help you out," Quinn said.

"No, stay here. Get some sleep. It's already well past 4 in the morning, and tomorrow's going to be a big day."

"I _am _kind of tired," she admitted. "_Someone_ made me chase them through the city to the labratory on the outskirts of the colony."

"Yeah, well, I try to cause as much mayhem as I can."

"You're good at it." She wrapped her arms around his neck. "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah, I'll see you then."

She leaned in closer, but he didn't reciprocate. When she looked up at him, he gestured with his eyes and a slight nod of the head towards the Doctor. The Time Lord was still standing behind the console, arms folded, just looking at them.

"Achem," Quinn said. "I'm just saying goodnight to Daniel."

"Mm Hm. Good on you. Carry on."

"Yeah. Just... saying goodnight. Until tomorrow." The Doctor stood there still. "_Alone?!_" she said pointedly, and he finally seemed to get the message.

"Ooh. Yes, well, love to stay and chat, but I'd better go check the... flux... capacitor," he said, gesturing with his thumb out the door behind him and backing towards the corridor that lay through it.

"He seems a bit out of sorts," Daniel said once he'd gone and closed the door.

"He won't tell me why, but there's something about tomorrow's plan that really has him on edge. I don't think he can wait to get out of here."

"Is that abnormal for him?"

"Kind of. He's always like this - all smiles and bravery during a crisis, but he absolutely hates long goodbyes."

"Well, we'll be out of here tomorrow. Now, I really do have to go pack," he said.

"Okay. See you tomorrow." She kissed him again, not as passionately as back in the lab, but a long, full kiss just the same.

"Keep that up and I'll never leave," he said.

"You better not. See you tomorrow." She closed the door, and he took a few steps back from the big blue box. He looked at it, still having a hard time believing it, and turned away, shaking his head and laughing. For the first time in a long time, things were looking up.


	17. Chapter 17

"The Flux Capacitor? A lifetime of experiences with alien technology and _that's_ what you come up with as a bluff?" She'd found him in a workroom, assembling pieces and parts to God knew what with the sonic. He didn't reply. "Daniel's gone. He went to pack up a few things. He'll see us when the first load of refugees comes aboard."

"Mm." She sat on a stool across the workbench from him, and took one of his hands in hers, forcing him to stop working. "Quinn, I have to finish this," he said.

"What's a time lock?"

"I told you, it's a static field of time that renders-"

"I remember that. What is it to _you_? You haven't been the same since you brought it up eight hours ago."

He sighed. "The last time I did this... it was a different planet, but it was the same reason. To stop a war. Only it didn't work. The war still happened, and everyone who was left behind... it wasn't worth it."

"It'll work this time, though. It has to."

"If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there's no such thing as a guaranteed outcome." He pulled his hand back and resumed his work.

She moved around to his side of the workbench, sat down again, and said, "How can I help?"

He smiled. "This is a four dimensional transient field generator. I'll leave it at the Capitol before we head for orbit tomorrow. Do you know anything about realigning the chronon shell of a celestial body to a different temporal stream?"

She shook her head. "I'm afraid not."

He nodded, then handed her the sonic screwdriver. "Just weld those two pieces together," he said, pointing them out. "Good. Just keep a steady hand, smooth motion." He took her hands in his, guiding them.

"My dad was never good with his hands," she said. "He never taught me any of this."

"No? Well, you're doing alright at it."

She continued working alongside him for an hour, maybe longer, but she must have finally succumbed to exhaustion because the next thing she knew, she was waking up back in her bed.

**Morning of the Fourth Day**

"You've been out a long time," the Doctor said as she made her way into the control room. She could feel tension radiating off him; he was in full alert mode, concentrating intently on whatever the console was telling him.

"I was kind of exhausted, yeah. Where are we?"

"In orbit already. Seventy three ships - personal and commercial - have already left. But according to the presidential staff the spaceport is overrun with people trying to reach the evacuation shuttles."

She came up beside him and stared at the scanner screen. She didn't even really have a reason; she couldn't read it anyway. The Gallifreyan text didn't translate at all. But somehow standing there, watching over the process and looking for anything she could do at least felt useful. Maybe the Doctor was rubbing off on her.

"I thought you said it would only be a few hundred people after the main evacuation."

"Yeah, it's a small colony and there are five shuttles, plus Daniel's ship makes six evacuating the planet. There are about two hundred refugees, figure about ten per shuttle per trip... that means about three round trips for each of them, plus a couple more for any stragglers."

"And how long do we have?"

"A few hours. Two and a half, maybe three if we're lucky."

"That seems like plenty of time."

"There's panic at the spaceport. Mums and dads who can't agree whether to stay or go, families pleading friends not to leave... they can't sort out who's going and who's staying, who's boarding and who's trying to drag another passenger off a shuttle."

There was a sinking feeling in her chest when he said this. "Oh, no. It must be chaos."

He nodded. "The authorities are trying to make sense of it, segregate the people who are leaving from those that aren't, but it's still a right jumble."

"Can I help?"

"The first shuttle will be here in a minute and a half. Expand an air corridor out to two hundred meters - that dial, there. When people come aboard, your job is to get them into the back rooms. Kitchen, library, squash court, anywhere but here. Keep people away from the console and don't let them touch anything. But most of all keep it calm, orderly, and quick. If the Siborean fleet shows up we're doomed."

"They won't be able to shoot down the TARDIS, will they?" She asked, turning the dial the Doctor had indicated to expand the atmosphere around the Police Box.

"Probably not, but all the refugee ships would be sitting ducks."

There was a crackle of static, then the voice of a pilot filled the console room. "Fragaria One to control, mayday, mayday."

"They're here," the Doctor said. "Quinn, open the doors, both of them. Lock them wide open." She ran to do as he instructed, opening both doors and using a scarf to tie the door handles to the railing just inside the door.

"Control here. Status?" another voice said from the radio.

"We're at the coordinates ready to offload refugees, but there isn't any ship here. We have eleven refugees with no place to unload."

"Control here, your coordinates are confirmed."

"Fragaria One, Control, this is the Doctor aboard the TARDIS. You should be able to see us, just aft of your port engine."

"Scanners don't show you. Are you cloaked?"

"Widen the detection parameters; we're smaller than you might think."

"We're already at 20% above normal."

"_Much_ smaller."

"All I have out there is some debris, about the size of a shed. No, smaller."

"Yep, that's us."

"You have to be kidding! You won't get four people in there! There are over two hundred refugees coming up from the surface! Command, you promised us a proper evac!"

"This is command," the other voice said. "Your orders are correct. Initiate docking procedures with orbital object gamma, designation TARDIS."

The pilot sighed. "Understood, command."

"What the hell's goin' on up there, Ace?" yet another voice asked.

"Is the whole planet on this line?" Quinn muttered but the Doctor shushed her.

"Dunno, Zip," the first pilot replied. "Someone at Command's gone mad, I think."

"They really need better callsigns," the Doctor said. He had stopped working the console, just for a moment, to watch the shuttle dock. It backed up slowly towards the open double doors, the engines glowing steadily.

"Ace here. I can't get a read on the docking mechanism. Are we locked with the airlock?"

"Roger, captain," the Doctor said, rather than try to explain anything else. "Clear to open airlock."

The doors slid open and twelve faces peered out. The people in front had a slight moment of panic when they saw that the shuttle wasn't sealed to the TARDIS door after all, but they quickly recovered their wits when they discovered they could still breathe.

The passengers hadn't seen the exterior, so they probably didn't realize anything was amiss about the console room's dimensions, but the pilot turned his chair around, sprung up, and ran back to the threshold as fast as he could. "Oh my God..."

"Captain!" the Doctor called, sounding positively delighted. "Welcome aboard! Told you we had space. Room aplenty! Quinn will show you all to the guest areas."

She started ushering people through the back door, the pilot still standing there dumbfounded. "How is this possible?"

"There's really not time to explain now, is there? Now, be a good chap, get the next load. There's a queue forming and a lot of people still down below."

"Yes. Yes, I suppose there are." He turned back towards the pilot's seat, still looking over his shoulder at the console room, unable or unwilling to take his eyes off it. Once he sat down and closed the doors, though, he at least had the presence of mind to send a message to the rest of the squad. "Hey, flight, command, there's no reason to worry about object Gamma. Go ahead and dock. You won't _believe _that ship when you get a look inside..."


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: Happy Thanksgiving! In honor of the holiday, here's an early release for before your Turkey-induced coma. Next chapter releases this weekend as scheduled. Thanks for all the reviews, they make me smile every time!**

* * *

Forty-five agonizing minutes later, Quinn stood by the doors watching Daniel's shuttle docking. The door opened, the ramp extended, and ten people rushed through into the console room as fast as they could. They each flashed a card at her as they came by but she was too preoccupied to question it. "Through there, hurry," she said, pointing through the far door but not moving to accompany them like she probably should have. She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, waiting for him.

Another long moment passed, and finally the inner door slid aside. "Daniel," she called, taking a long step across the threshold of the TARDIS and into his ship, meeting him in the center for a hug.

"Mornin', bed head," he replied.

"What?"

"You've got a sort of a... uh... poof thing going on," he said, gesturing around his own head.

She reached up and felt the protrusion of hair sticking straight up along the side of her head. "Oh no," she said. "Oh my gosh, I'm so embarrassed!"

"It's OK," he said, "really."

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, turning to the Doctor.

"Hm? Tell you what?"

"That I look like I've been in a head on collision with a dog grooming wagon!"

"I thought you liked it like that," he said. "Earth fashion is kind of hard to track."

"He's probably not lying," Daniel told her. "I mean, look at _his _hair."

"Oi!"

She at least made an effort to smooth it back down before she turned back to Daniel. "How bad is it down there?" she asked, more seriously now.

"It's not good," he replied. "It's a mass of hysteria. Once the first group was done and loaded up, the authorities started trying to make heads or tails of the passengers. They're passing out yellow and red cards to people... yellow for those that want to leave, red for those who are staying, so they can try to keep people from jumping into the wrong lines and pulling people out."

"Are they really trying to force people to stay against their will?" the Doctor asked.

"One guy handcuffed himself to his sister to keep her from going," Daniel replied, nodding. "Don't worry, they cut them apart."

"That sounds terrible," Quinn said.

"It's gonna be okay. Some people will be getting used to a new way of life, but it's not impossible."

She smiled weakly. "I know."

The speaker in the console crackled again. "Command, this is Fragaria 1. We're all loaded up and ready for round two."

He brushed her hair back behind her ear. "I better go."

"Yeah." He kissed her, just a quick peck on the cheek, before sitting back down in the pilot's seat. "You know, maybe, if it's really that bad down there I should come with you..."

"No," he said. "The Doctor needs you here. Just be sure to check people's cards as they come aboard."

She nodded. "Okay. See you soon."

"Yeah."

She noticed a few duffel bags stashed in the corner of the hold. "That your stuff?"

"Yeah, just a few keepsakes I wanted with me. I'll unload them when we're done."

"No, let's take them into the TARDIS a second. You could probably fit another person if we do."

With the two of them moving them the short distance to the TARDIS ramp, it only took a minute to offload his possessions. She stepped back aboard the TARDIS and watched his ship fly back down to the planet, staring after it until she couldn't see it anymore.

"You alright?" the Doctor asked her.

"Yeah, I just have this feeling... like something bad's going to happen."

"It's alright," the Doctor told her. "We're ahead of schedule. Everything looks fine."

An hour later, everything was indeed looking fine. Daniel had dropped the last load off - two hundred and nineteen passengers in all were aboard the TARDIS. Quinn showed the last few people through the door in the back, then went to the threshold to meet him.

"You did it!" she said, standing on her tiptoes and hugging him tightly around the neck.

"We did it," he said. "We couldn't have done it without you and the Doctor." He turned back towards the _Stormchaser II_ and patted its hull affectionately. "Or without the old girl here."

"She served you well," the Doctor said. "Did you want to take her along?"

"I don't think we'd ever get her through the door," Daniel said.

"Oh, nothing's impossible if you put your mind to it," he replied. "Just need a bit of elbow grease." The two teenagers smirked at him. "No, seriously. Elbow Grease, manufactured on Atraxillus Major. Best friction nullification on the market, by far and away."

"That's all well and good but... no. I don't think so. If I'm going to do this, then it's time for a fresh start; I don't want anything of my past to hold me back." And he reached out with his foot and gave the storm chasing craft a shove. It began to drift away slowly, with its repulsors still doing their best to keep it parked. Nonetheless, it revealed the planet below them. As they watched, they could see an energy field forming around the planet; wisps and tendrils interweaved themselves around the planet, forming a solid link. Daniel stared out at it, lost in thought. Quinn reached out and grabbed a hold of his hand, giving it a tight squeeze. "You OK?"

He turned to her. "Yeah. All good. Just saying goodbye." He turned, taking a few strides towards the console and clapping his hands. "Alright. Are we ready to get out of here?" he asked.

"Not yet," the Doctor replied. "We still have..." he consulted a meter on the console, "...seventeen minutes until the time lock is complete. Still, we're nearly there."

"And all the passengers are safely in the back areas," Quinn said. "I think a couple of the adults were gonna take some of the kids swimming."

"Just be sure they don't get any of my first editions wet!"

"If you'd just get the library out of the swimming pool..." Quinn said, but the Doctor cut her off.

"I like it like that! Besides, 30-40% humidity is good for the paper."

Quinn rolled her eyes at the Doctor. Daniel looked back and forth between the two of them. "So wait. The library... is in the pool?"

"I'll show you around tonight, I promise," Quinn said.

"You'd better."

"I will! Now, go on, shut the doors. It's freezing in here."

She gave him a playful shove and he headed down the ramp to the double doors. He was just about to close them when he looked out over the planet in time to see a dozen shimmering discs of light. "Uh, Doctor? We've got company."

"The Siborean fleet's arrived early," he said as each shimmer stretch and elongated to reveal a Siborean vessel.

"How can that be?" Quinn asked.

"Well, who knows how long they were in orbit before they fired on the planet," the Doctor said. "They probably established a blockade, tried to shoot down any stragglers."

"Which makes us a target?" Daniel asked.

"Quite possibly."

"What do we do?" Quinn asked.

The Doctor clasped his hand over his mouth for a moment, deep in thought, then said, "Shut the doors. I'll do my best to dampen their sensors, so they can't get a look at who all we have in here, and then..."

"Yes?" Daniel prompted him.

"Daniel, are you any good at cards?"

"What? Erm, I suppose so..."

"Good. We're going to try a bluff. Just follow my lead." He grabbed Daniel around the shoulders, squeezing both of them in close to the scanner screen. "Quinn, just stay back, out of sight."

She pulled away around the other side of the console, watching them over the scanner screen. "Okay, I'm clear."

He nodded, then turned a knob on the console. "This is PC John Smith representing the Shadow Proclamation! Please state your purpose in this sector!"

A Siborean face filled the scanner screen. Unlike the others, his hair was a wide strip, like a mohawk, extending from the back of the head and ending in an arrow's point right between the eyes. "Admiral Klor," the creature rasped. "Fifth battalion of the Siborean Interplanetary Dispute Council. This planet is guilty of war crimes against the Siborean nation and will be destroyed. Move away." And the screen went dead.

"Oh, now, that's just rude," the Doctor said, punching the comms up again.

"Can't we just speed up the process and get out of here?" Daniel asked.

The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut, thinking. "It's possible, but we might not have enough time. And if they get the bomb in there before the time lock..."

"What?" Quinn asked when he didn't finish the thought.

He stopped messing with the communications panel and looked at her. "Agony," he said. "Unending agony for every last person on that planet, forever and ever, stuck for all eternity in that instant between atomization and death." Her breath caught in her throat at the thought, but the comm unit beeped and she had to stifle herself to keep from making a sound.

Klor's visage appeared on the screen again. "My patience is wearing thin, Mr. Smeeth."

"That's Smith. Police Constable John Smith, and my deputy, Sgt. Parker. We're here to investigate the crimes these people have committed and make sure they're punished accordingly."

"This is an internal Siborean matter, and the fifth battalion will ensure that it is adequately taken care of."

"What, with a fusion atomizer?" The Siborean's eyes widened with surprise. "Yes, we've got a full read on your weapons' compliment. There's no use trying to hide anything from us. We're the police, after all."

"Police?"

"Yeah, 'course we are! Read it off the side of the box if you don't believe me." Nobody said anything on either side. "Well come on! You're scanning the whole sector."

The Siborean glanced off to the left of his screen, presumably looking at another crew member who said, "Markings indicate that they are affiliated with a police force of some kind."

"There, you see? So if you'll just let us get along about our business, you can be off to greener pastures... or whatever color pastures suit your fancy, really."

"We were sent by our government to ensure that these people paid for their crimes," Klor said. "If we return without evidence that we have slagged the planet we will be in disgrace."

"Slagged? That's the almighty Siborean plan, slag the planet?" He scoffed. "You see what I mean, sergeant?" he said, turning his attention to Daniel. "I told you it was like this out on the fringes. People like this-" and he pointed right to the Siborean on the screen "-don't know the first thing about reputation management. Didn't I say?"

"Yes... yes you did. I mean, uh, Affirmative, you did." He cleared his throat and artificially deepened his voice. "Roger. 10-4. Over and out."

The Doctor turned his face away from the camera and whispered out the corner of his mouth, "No, no, don't do that."

"I copy."

"No, seriously, don't. Just... don't." He turned back to the screen. "Now that's the kind of sloppy thinking that keeps you from dominating the sector," he said. "You think too small. You're going to melt the surface of the planet? Ha! When I'm done there won't be a thing left."

If the Siborean hadn't been impressed before, at least now he was sitting up and taking notice. He sat straighter in his chair. "Nothing?"

"Nothing. Not a trace. You can fly right through it, there won't be a thing there. How's that for sending a message? A busy spaceport like this... word will spread quickly. That's the kind of PR you can use to leverage yourselves to a stronger position in this sector, now isn't it?"

The Siborean thought about it for a moment, then said, "But ultimately it would be you who had done this thing, not us."

"Well, now... I suppose that could always be our little secret, now couldn't it?"

And then the Siborean did something creepier than anything he had done in this entire conversation. He smiled. He smiled a terrible, wide, toothy smile. "I like the way you think, PC Smeeth."

"It's Smith. And just watch. Just you wait and see. We'll take care of this. When the police force obliterate a planet, it stays obliterated."

"I trust it will be glorious."

"Oh, you have no idea." And he cut the comm chatter.

As soon as the channel was closed, Quinn came back around and hugged him. "You were great!" she said. "Very well played."

"You think?"

"You put Rachel Berry to shame," she said.

"Oh, I don't think I'd go that far," he replied.

Daniel hadn't joined in the celebration, though. He was looking towards the door in the back that led to the rest of the ship. Quinn followed his gaze and saw what he was staring at, a young boy gazing around the room in wide eyed wonder, his excitement barely contained.

"Hello there," Daniel said. "Shouldn't you be in the back?"

"Sorry, sir," he said.

"Oh, I'm a sir now, am I?" Daniel said jovially to the Doctor and Quinn, who had also turned to look at the newcomer. He turned his attention back to the kid. "What's your name?"

"Kevin," the boy replied. "What's yours?"

"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said, "and these are my friends, Quinn and Daniel. This is my ship."

"Wow." He took a few steps forward and reached out to touch one of the coral-like spires.

"What do you think?" Daniel asked him. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah!" the boy agreed, grinning from ear to ear now. "This is my first time on a spaceship!"

"What, you never toured one, even at the spaceport?" Daniel asked.

He shook his head. "My mum and dad say that space travel is for the birds, whatever that means."

"Oh, I know a race like that," the Doctor said. "Literally. They... uh, they..." he looked at Daniel and Quinn, each scowling at him from one shoulder. "It's not important, really. Nevermind."

"I wish I could see more space ships like this," Kevin said.

"Well, maybe you can," the Doctor said. "Once I evacuate you and your family and the rest of the colonists, who knows where you might go? There might be a lot of space ships in your future."

He shook his head no. "We won't go anywhere."

"Oh, come on, how can you be so sure?"

"Because, my parents don't want anything to ever change. They want to stay exactly the way that they are right now. They even refused to leave the planet."

None of the three older people by the console responded, because they all knew what they'd heard, they all had a suspicion, and they really _really_ did not want to be right.

Quinn spoke up first. "Sweetheart, are you parents with you?"

He looked over both shoulders, then said, "You thick or something? There's nobody here except me and you people."

She walked over to him and knelt down so as to be closer to his eye level. "What about anywhere else on the TARDIS, through those doors back there? Did they come up here with you?"

"Pfft, no. They'd never have let me see a spaceship, so I came out to see one myself."

His card was still pinned to his lapel, but it had turned around at one point, and she flipped it back to face her, slowly, carefully, muttering a silent prayer as she did so. _Not red, please not red. Please, please, please..._


	19. Chapter 19

Quinn held her breath and turned the card over. It was red. "Kevin, did you stow away one one of the shuttles?" But she already knew the answer. Suddenly she remembered seeing him. She'd checked all the adults' cards, but she'd seen this kid holding onto the jacket of one of the men coming in, hiding his face in the fabric, and assumed they were together. She hadn't asked him for his card to make sure it was the right color. And now it was too late, and it was all her fault. When would she finally get it right, and stop screwing up other peoples' lives?

Kevin stuck the tip of his tongue between the gap where his two front teeth would have been had they not fallen out and giggled - clearly he was impressed with his own adventuresome spirit. Everyone else was less amused.

The Doctor had already turned around and begun fiddling with the comms again. "I need a private channel," he muttered. "The Siboreans will be listening in."

"How long do we have?" Daniel asked him.

"Less than twelve minutes."

There was a squeal of static and then a familiar voice filled the TARDIS. "This is Fragaria one. What's your request, over?"

"Fragaria one - Ace, it's the TARDIS. We need you to come back. We have a passenger here who should be staying on the planet - a child; he can't be older than nine."

"Oh God... how did he..."

"Stowaway. Hurry! You only have about twelve minutes left."

"TARDIS... I'm so sorry but... I can't."

"What do you mean you can't?"

"Our flight has already started de-fueling. Once the process starts it takes fifteen minutes to finish, and we can't reverse the pumps mid cycle. None of our vessels will be space worthy for at least a half hour."

"What's the big deal? Just wait until the evacuation drill's over and take me back," Kevin said.

"There isn't going to be any 'over'," the Doctor said harshly, slamming his fist down on the console. "This isn't any drill! Once this is over, there will be no way to get back to that planet ever again, do you understand me?" He had come up to the kid while he was speaking and shook him roughly by the shoulders. "Do you have any idea what you've done?" he shouted.

Kevin's bottom lip began to quiver and he sniffled a couple times. "I'm sorry! I just wanted to see a spaceship," he said.

"And now you may never see anyone you care about ever again. Satisfied?"

Quinn stood up, grabbed the Doctor by the forearm, and tugged him forcibly back a few steps. "Is that _really necessary_?" she asked, and her tone made it clear it wasn't a question. She hissed at him, "Shouting at him isn't going to solve anything, and whichever of your old demons you're dealing with right now are not his fault." Her tone evened out, portraying a calm, level-headedness that she didn't really feel as her heart thudded in her chest. "Now, we have a situation. What are we going to do about it?"

The Doctor breathed in and out, hard, through his nose a few times, then said a little more calmly, "We can't take him back down. If we move, the process fails and has to be started over again. The Siboreans will see that as failure, and they'll destroy the planet their own way."

"I'll take him," Daniel said quietly.

"What about an escape pod? Does the TARDIS even have an escape pod?" She asked.

"The whole TARDIS may as well be an escape pod," he replied.

"I said I'd take him," Daniel said.

"There must be some way to get him down there," she said, hearing panic rise in her own voice.

Daniel stepped forward. "I said, I have a way."

"Yeah," the Doctor said, sounding resigned. "I know."

"What?" Quinn asked.

"I've still got the _Stormchaser II_. I can take him and be back in time. Eleven minutes, right?"

The Doctor nodded. "You can probably make it there and back with a couple minutes to spare if you accelerate through your reentry."

"And the ship's designed specifically to take that kind of abuse. I think I can do it."

"Wait, what? Daniel, this is crazy!" Quinn said.

"I don't have time to talk about this," he said. "The clock's ticking."

"I know, but there has to be a better way."

"Maybe there is, but we don't exactly have time to sit back and give it a good mulling over."

"He's right, Quinn. It's the only way that's immediately available."

Daniel had already opened the doors to the TARDIS again. "Uh-oh."

"What's wrong?"

"Doctor, how far does that air corridor expand?"

"As far as I need it to, why?"

"Well... look." Quinn and the Doctor peered out through the doors.

"Oh." the Doctor said.

"That's..."

"Yeah."

The _Stormchaser II_ was still drifting slowly away from the TARDIS. It was at least twenty feet away now, and moving further.

"Do you have, like, a tractor beam or something we can use to get it back?" Daniel asked.

"No, nothing like that."

"What kind of spaceship doesn't even have a lousy tractor beam?"

"There's never been a complaint before now!" He glanced at the clock. "Ten minutes. I'm sorry but you're going to have to do it the hard way," the Doctor said, dialing back the air corridor to the TARDIS' doors.

Daniel nodded. "Kevin, come here!" Fortunately, the kid at least obeyed that order quickly enough.

Quinn looked back and forth between the Doctor and Daniel. "What's the hard way?"

"Decompression," Daniel said, pulling a piece of cable out of one of his bags and tying himself to the kid so they wouldn't be separated. "It's the only way to get us moving fast enough to reach the cockpit. At least the hatch is still facing this way."

"Okay. I'll come too. I can help."

"It's dangerous. We're taking a gamble that might not even work. Even if we were sure, it's _really _not safe," he said, putting a hand on her stomach and hoping she'd take the hint.

She put her hands over his on her midsection, but her gaze never left his eyes. "Let me go with you."

He kissed her, only for a moment before he pulled away. "No, my love, no. Doctor?"

He nodded, grabbing Quinn around the shoulders. "Hold on!" he told her. "Daniel, go!"

"What're we doing?" Kevin asked.

"Taking a leap of faith," Daniel said. "Come on!" He grabbed Kevin around the waist and carried him, football-like, towards the door. Just as he got a step away from the threshold, the Doctor pressed a button on the console and the air started to rush out of the room. The change in pressure of the atmosphere rushing past her ears was painful, but she managed to keep her eyes open and see Daniel leap from the TARDIS, caught up in the rush of escaping air and propelled towards his own craft.

The Doctor stopped the decompression a moment later, and Quinn ran to the doors, watching them hurtle across space. "Daniel!" For a terrible moment, it didn't look like they were going to make it, but she saw the two of them slam into the deck before the door slammed closed automatically. "Is he okay?" she asked. "Doctor, _is he okay_?"

"They'll be fine. It was only a few seconds of exposure. Maybe a few burst capillaries but nothing a bandage won't fix."

The pod had started moving towards the planet seconds later. "Will they make it?"

"He's got nine minutes," the Doctor said. "The average round trip was fifteen but that included loading and unloading passengers, so..."

A beeping noise interrupted them, and then Klor's voice filled the room. "Mr. Smeeth, two refugees have escaped your custody."

"Yes, but they're heading for the planet. They think they'll be safe. What's the harm if they die here or there?"

"You didn't tell us you had made any arrests whatsoever. How many more are there?"

"Just the two. We picked them up trying to escape."

"You should have been more forthcoming about the extent of your investigation. How are we to trust you now?"

He flashed his most disarming grin. "Well, we're the police of course."

"We? Where is your sergeant?"

"Just... attending to some other business. Paperwork, you know how it is."

"So if I were to check the identity of the escapee, it would not be the same man?"

"Nah, 'course not."

"Indeed, of course. Incidentally, a scan of the planet shows far fewer life forms than we were told to expect."

"Well, you don't think I crammed a bunch of folks in here, do you? Look at the size of us. We seat 4, no more."

"Hm," the Siborean said, and at least the thought had given him momentary pause. The Doctor stared right at him across the scanner screen, across the blackness of space, his exterior an unwavering mask. Inside he was about to lose his mind. Finally the Siborean glanced off screen, moving only his eyes for a moment and giving a curt nod. "I believe you, Mr. Smeeth," he said, grinning a cruel grin that was just too menacing to be sincere. "And because I believe you, I have decided I will not destroy your vessel. In fact, I will protect it."

"Will you now?" the Doctor asked, skepticism creeping into his voice.

"The escapees you lost a few minutes ago are hurtling back towards your vessel at an alarming speed. And rather than allow them to ram your ship, I have ordered the vessel to be shot down."


	20. Chapter 20

"No! Don't!" the Doctor yelled. "Don't you dare, Klor!"

Klor grimaced at the Doctor through the screen. "You are not here to destroy the planet at all!" he sneered. "What have you done? Are there even any people left below? What kind of trickery is this?"

"It's not a trick," the Doctor said coldly. "There really are people down there, and I won't let you hurt them. Not a single, solitary one of them."

"You can shoot me down, but more will be dispatched to take the planet."

"I told you, there won't be a planet left. I wasn't lying. Now, you can either leave, or you can stay here forever. The choice is yours."

"Forever?"

"Creating a static field of time isn't easy. It takes a ton of power, and ages to charge up properly. But once the process is complete, once you have that perfect moment where all the conditions line up, well... at that point your options are almost unlimited. So I'm warning you; you leave that pod alone, you back away from this planet, and you vacate this system, or I will make sure it's the very last thing that you do."

The twelve vessels had aligned themselves into an attack formation, with a direct line of sight on the TARDIS and the _Stormchaser II_'s approach vector. "I have a better idea, Mr. Smeeth," the Siborean commander said. "I will handle the situation my own way and you shall be the one to go on your way, tail between your legs, in defeat." Below the lead vessel, a light began to glow. Quinn recognized it immediately. Three days ago, she'd seen that same sparkling light lift off the planet's surface and disappear into the sky, consuming its own smoke trail as it went. Now it was prepared to go the other way.

"You called me Mr. Smeeth," the Doctor said coldly. "But that's not my name. My name... is the Doctor."

He turned a dial. That was all. It was a movement so quick that Quinn didn't even register that he had done anything. But as she watched through the still-open doors, something changed outside. One of the strands of blue-white energy that was curling around the planet snaked away from the rest of the group and made a beeline for the Siborean armada. It collided with the missile, and a shower of blue sparks erupted from the point of contact. A transparent blue bubble expanded out from the epicenter, crackling with energy.

"What is this?" Klor growled. "What have you done?"

"Disarmed your warhead," the Doctor replied. "Move away, quickly! It's not too late!"

"I don't take orders from you."

"It's not an order! I'm trying my hardest to save your life!"

But it _was _too late. Abruptly, the signal cut out. There was a brilliant white flash from within the bubble that Quinn had to look away from, shielding her eyes. Then in an instant, the bubble became opaque, and collapsed in on itself down to nothing, leaving not even a pinprick that she could see. One of the ships had been caught on the edge of the field, and everything that had been inside was ripped away. The lights flickered and died on the remaining half of the ship as it drifted listlessly.

"What happened?" Quinn asked.

"I time locked the explosion," he said. "I had to be sure it wouldn't get to the planet."

Her face lit up. "That's great! You did it! And the warships are gone! You took the warships out too!"

The Doctor wasn't happy, though. "I didn't mean for that to happen. I really didn't. I just wanted to contain the explosion."

"Why not? Sounds like they got what they..." she trailed off, remembering what he had said would happen if the bomb were locked away with the planet. _Unending agony... forever and ever, stuck for all eternity in that instant between atomization and death. _"Oh." Her face fell. "Couldn't we have... I mean, did we _have _to..."

"I warned them," the Doctor said, and it seemed the conversation was closed.

She pushed the thought to the back of her mind, another taking its place: "What about Daniel?"

"Oh, right!" he said, his smile returning and his features brightening. "I should be able to raise him now. TARDIS to _Stormchaser II_! TARDIS to _Stormchaser II_! You're clear for entry and you still have... three minutes to spare!"

"_Stormchaser II_ is en route, and I'm pleased to report that Kevin is safe and sound, reunited with his family, who are promising never to let him out of their sight again as long as he lives."

"Ooh, what a way to grow up."

"That's great, Daniel!" Quinn called out. "See you in a minute!" She ran back up to the Doctor at the console. "We did it! He made it in time! We did it!" she said, hugging him tightly. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Oh, you two should have seen it," Daniel said. "I couldn't stay long but it was very heartfelt. Seriously, there were tears."

"Really? You cried?" Quinn asked.

"I didn't say that."

"So you didn't tear up?"

"I didn't say that either."

"You're being deliberately evasive," she said. "You remind me of someone else I know."

She smiled at the Doctor, who put on an over-exaggerated show of being terribly offended, but then he smiled. "It was my plea-"

He was cut off by an awful crashing sound, followed by static from the radio. Quinn jerked her head around, looking back out the doors just in time to see the remaining half of a Siborean cruiser drift around with its main weapon facing the _Stormchaser II_. And even in the last of its death throes, it still managed to lash out with one last deadly beam, which struck the tiny pod. Smoke and flame erupted from the smaller vessel as Quinn watched, horrified. Even the Doctor looked shocked.

"What happened? What was that?"

"Laser blast from the Siborean ship," the Doctor said. "Probably still on automatic before the power died."

"Oh my God, oh my God..."

"It probably drained whatever was left in the batteries almost immediately. Maybe the damage won't be as bad..."

"Is he still there? Can you get him back?"

"I'm here," Daniel said through a cough, his voice sounding strained.

"Daniel! Thank God, I thought you'd been destroyed. Hurry back!" Quinn said. "Come on, as quick as you can, then we can get out of here. We can just leave this place."

"Quinn..." Daniel said, trailing off.

"Yes?"

"Quinn I'm not... I mean, I can't... I..."

"What is it?" she asked quietly, feeling herself start to sweat and losing strength in her knees. "What happened?"

"The blast overloaded the circuits again. It'll take at least five minutes to reboot them again."

She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. "Like the lightning?"

"Yeah. Without the main thrusters... I can't reach escape velocity."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I can't get the altitude. I'm sorry... I won't be able to get away."

"No, no, it's okay! We'll come get you, we'll... Doctor?"

She looked over at him, but he was shaking his head. "I told you, we have to be in orbit. We're anchoring an entire celestial body to a fixed point on the curvature of spacetime. We can't move or the process will have to start over again."

"So start it over again! You destroyed the fleet! Why are we even doing this at all anymore?"

"We can't alter the course of events, remember? History hasn't got a record of a civilization here. That has to be the outcome."

"Okay, fine, but even so... why are we in such a hurry?"

"The Siboreans won't rest. They probably already know what happened here. They'd send another armada and this time, they wouldn't let us finish up."

"No, no, no, no, no!" Quinn said, sobbing. "No, you can't! You can't! Doctor, you can't! You have to fix this!" she said, pounding her fist on his chest. He didn't move, just stood there and took it, rubbing her back gently. "I can't lose anyone else! Please! I can't! You'll break my heart!"

"I'm sorry," he said, leaning in towards her and whispering in her ear. "You've got a couple of minutes. Make the most of it. Don't have any regrets; don't leave anything unsaid. I'll let you be." And he strode off through the far door, leaving her alone in the console room.


	21. Chapter 21

She didn't know what to do. She was aware of the time ticking away, but nothing she could possibly have said seemed appropriate. She stood there, one hand on the console, trying to fight back tears. It was always like this, it seemed. Sue Sylvester. Finn and Carole Hudson. Santana Lopez. All her friends on a planet she could never return to. Even her own mother and father. Would there ever be anyone who wouldn't be ripped out of her life? Even the baby wouldn't be staying, not if she went through with her plan to give her up. Puck had offered to stay with her, be with her, but... he was Puck. It wasn't in his nature to ever truly belong to just one person.

But then Daniel had come along. He was sweet, he was generous, and he seemed to care about her for her own sake. Not because she could help his reputation or keep up his precious image through her, not because she was the head cheerleader or because she was the mother of his child or because she could sing really well. He just liked her because of who she was. She had moved way too fast with him. It hadn't been a good idea to wear her heart on her sleeve, not as vulnerable and tender as she'd been lately, but ultimately she couldn't bear to pass up the opportunity to explore what that must feel like, to care for someone and have them care for you based on who you were, not who they wanted you to be.

And now he was about to be gone.

Daniel must have heard her choked sobs across the comm line, because he said her name softly. "Quinn? Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she said. "I'll be fine."

"Yes, you will," he said. "Come to the door. Let me see you." She did as he asked, and even though she could barely see the pod in the upper atmosphere of the planet, she was sure with the visual equipment he had showed her a couple days ago that he could see her clearly. She did her best to put on a brave face as she leaned against the door frame. She heard him sigh. "You really are beautiful, you know that?"

She didn't smile, but she did at least nod slightly. "Daniel, I... how do I..."

"I don't know how. And I know it's hard, really I do. But you will. You'll move on, you'll make it. You'll be okay."

"No, I don't think so," she said. "I don't think I can do it..."

"Please? Don't just do it for you. Do it for me."

"Okay."

"Is my stuff still there?"

She glanced at the pile he'd left behind. "Yeah..."

"I want you to have it. Especially the red bag."

She reached out for it, opening the zipper slowly. "What's..."

"My mother kept those packed away from when I was a baby. It's not much, just a few clothes and stuff... I was hoping to give them to you in person but, well..."

Tears were threatening to overwhelm her again, but she looked back out at his ship and choked out, "I love you."

There was a momentary silence, and she feared that he had already gone, but then he said, in a small quiet voice, "I love you too."

"And Daniel? I just wanted to thank you, for the last four days. I had... fun. And believe me, it's been a while."

"I wish we'd known each other better. Don't think of it as getting cut off just as we were beginning," he said. "Just think of it as... a long goodbye."

"Yeah."

"And promise me one last thing," he said.

"Anything."

"Go see Peter, Paul, and Marjorie for me."

She smiled in spite of her tears. "It won't be the same without you."

"I know." Then there was silence on the line again. Neither of them knew what to say. Almost absentmindedly, Daniel started to hum and old familiar melody, and Quinn muttered out the lyrics through her choked voice.

_Where have all the flowers gone?  
Long time passing  
Where have all the flowers gone?  
Long time ago  
Where have all the flowers gone?  
Young girls have picked them every one  
When will they ever learn?  
Oh when will they ever learn?_

"That was nice," he said, as she watched a similar process occur as had with the Siboreans; an opaque bubble, crackling with energy, suddenly turned completely opaque and shrunk away into a tiny pinprick, finally disappearing altogether.

And then he was gone.

* * *

The Doctor found her sitting on the edge of the TARDIS threshold, with her legs dangling over the side of the Police Box façade. He'd given her a good thirty minutes before he came back out to the console room, refusing to let anyone else through there and reassuring them that they'd be underway just as soon as possible. "Is it done?" he asked, knowing full well that it was.

"Yeah, it's over," she said, her voice husky.

"I'm sorry."

She nodded unenthusiastically. "Sure."

He opened the door wider, and sat down next to her. "I looked at Daniel's parents' research," he said. "He was right. Something strange was going on. Everything on that planet was accelerated well beyond normal. They even had two cycles of all four seasons per every orbit. That's what drew the family out there to begin with," he said. "That should be completely impossible. Seasons should depend upon their position in the orbital cycle. It was like the planet was… temporally out of sync with itself."

She sighed. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know." They passed a few moments in silence, and he was hesitant to break the calm with words when he spoke again. "I've been remiss," he said. "I've just been hopping around from one place to another, like I always do. But I realize the stakes are a little… higher for you." He looked over at her as a tear rolled down her cheek. She still didn't say a word. "What do you want to do?" he asked. "Do you want to stop?"

"No," she said. "I've got to decide what to do once and for all, and I know I don't have a lot of time left. I have to decide if I'm going to keep her, and if I decide to, then I know I'll have to stop. I mean, I can't do this kind of thing with a newborn, now can I?"

"No. You really can't."

"I had the luxury of time back in Lima," she responded. "I just have to make a choice and then stick with it, no wavering back and forth. And that choice is…" she struggled with the next word. Once she said it out loud it'd be real, and it would feel like there was no going back.

"What's stopping you?"

"I thought I could do this without any emotions getting in the way. I knew I didn't have the time or the resources to take care of a baby. I'm just a kid myself."

"I can find you someplace where that really doesn't matter. Where you won't have to struggle to give her what she needs. There are planets out there, some of the more evolved ones, that don't have any sense of a global economy at all. If it's just a question of money…"

"It's not," she said. "This isn't a problem that you can just swoop in and solve! There's more to this than just money and clothes and all the material _stuff_." She sighed. "But what I never expected was how much it would hurt to let her go. I don't know if I can do it, Doctor. I don't know."

"So what you're saying is…"

She took a deep breath. "What I'm saying is that I haven't decided yet. But I will." She looked back at him instead of out at the stars. "Soon."

He smiled at her. "Okay."

"And when the time comes, I can't keep this up with you. I know that. I'll have to leave."

"Yeah," he said, sounding sad at the notion.

She turned back to the starfield, to the place where Daniel's planet used to be. "But until then, I want to stay with you. If that's okay, I mean."

He put an arm around her shoulder and looked out at the stars with her. "It'd be my honor."

She smiled returning his embrace. "Mine too."

**Afternoon of the Fourth Day**

The Siborean talks had broken down, just like everyone had said they would. The members of the colony world Fragaria weren't expecting anything different, after all. They'd been down this road before and, ultimately, nothing ever changed. Of course it had all been going well until the Siborean ambassador was assassinated, but the general population didn't know about that. No political group would take responsibility for the assassination. Daniel knew it hadn't been anyone on the planet who was actually responsible, but there was nobody to tell… not that it would have mattered at this point anyway. It was too late for the government to simply turn over the nonexistent perpetrators. Now the Siborean War Council had been called in, there was no turning back. Peace hadn't been the ultimate goal, but at least mutual coexistence had been hoped for. There was no chance for that now. Now there was just nothingness.

Daniel Parker stood alone, just outside the hangar door, watching the faraway city over the vast plains separating them. The worst thing, he thought, was being alone. He knew what was coming; the vast array of equipment inside the lab gave him a uniquely clear picture of the happenings far above, in orbit of the planet. He'd been watching it from the other side just moments prior. Maybe that was the worst thing, he mused. Because the knowing without being able to do anything about it was nothing short of horrific.

The end was coming, in a matter of moments, and as he stared out over the city he had just one regret; that Quinn was up there, all alone. All he wanted out of life since his parents had died was a chance to carry out their work, and publish their findings under their names, as a tribute to those he cared about, and who had most cared about him. That didn't seem to matter as much now. As he looked out towards the city, a sparkling light streaked into view across the sky. It circled the planet and the sun and stars above seemed to dim. The last thing he knew was the sensation of a great coldness washing over every single bit of his being.

That was it, it was over. He walked back into the lab and sighed, looking over the equipment. Tomorrow he'd cancel the lease on the lab and try to sell as much of the equipment as he could. He might have been able to get rid of some of it through Pete, but the older man had gone; there wasn't really a need for an antiques trade on a planet that was closed to the rest of the universe. All his musically inclined friends from the square had gone, too, hoping to start their own lives out there in the universe rather than stay here on a colony with no prospects. He couldn't say that he really blamed them either. He was young, too, and given a choice he wouldn't have been spending the rest of his life here. That didn't get rid of the sting he felt as he realized that he really didn't have anyone left anymore.

He shut off the lights in the lab and was about to retire to his room to get some sleep, regardless of the early hour, when he heard something in one of the smaller rooms; an electric crackling and buzzing sort of sound. He opened the door and peered inside, trying to discern if anything was amiss. There was someone in there, a girl, wearing a skirt and a sweater with a white top peeking out from underneath at the wrists and neck. Her socks came up to her knees and she wore simple black shoes over them. She turned to face him, eyes wide with confusion and not just a little fear. "Where am I? How did I get here?" In her hand was a glowing device, and the blue glow from the buttons on it illuminated her face, casting an eerie shadow over her eyes.

"I was just going to ask you the same thing," he said. "How did you get in without tripping security?"

"I don't know, I don't even know where I am! What's happening?"

"Okay, okay, it's alright," he said. "Calm down. My name's Daniel, what's yours?"

She took a deep breath to calm herself. "Rachel," she said. "My name's Rachel Berry."

**THE END**

* * *

**A\N: The Doctor and Quinn will return on Christmas Day in "The Point of Mercy"**


End file.
